SYR  I A 

AND 

THE  HOLY  LAND 


By 

The  Very  Rev.  Sir  George  Adam  Smith 

Kt.,  M.A.,  D.D.,  Litt.D.,  F.B.A., 

Principal  of  Aberdeen  University 

Author  of  “Historical  Geography,  of  the  Holy  Land ” 

“ Jerusalem :  the  Topography ,  Economics  and  History” 

“  The  Early  Poetry  of  Israel  ”  etc . 


D5I07 

.S64 


NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


DS  107 

.564 


' 


SYRIA  AND  THE 
HOLY  LAND 


BY 

VERY  REV.  SIR  GEORGE  ADAM  SMITH 

KT.,  M.A.,  D.D.j  LITT.D.,  F.B.A. 

PRINCIPAL  OF  ABERDEEN  UNIVERSITY 

Author  of  “Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  hand,” 

“ Jerusalem :  the  Topography,  Economics,  and  History ,” 
“The  Early  Poetry  of  Israel  ”  etc . 


WITH  MAPS 


NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright ,  1918, 

By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


Printed  in  the  United,  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 


THE  HISTORY . 

THE  NAMES . . 

BOUNDARIES — EXTERNAL  AND  INTERNAL 

THE  COAST  . 

THE  MARITIME  PLAIN . 

THE  WESTERN  RANGE . 

THE  ORONTES-JORDAN-ARABAH  VALLEY  . 

THE  EASTERN  RANGE . 

THE  DISCREDITED  TURK . 

THE  DUTIES  OF  HIS  SUCCESSOR 
THE  RECOVERY  OF  THE  LAND  . 

THE  NATIVE  PEASANTRY  OR  FELLAHIN 

THE  CLAIMS  OF  THE  JEWS . 

RELIGIOUS  QUESTIONS . 

ECONOMIC  QUESTIONS . 

THE  LIMITS  OF  THE  JEWISH  AREA  . 

THE  FRONTIERS  OF  NEW  SYRIA 
EPILOGUE . 


PAGE 

5 

9 

12 

15 

17 

20 

26 

29 

35 

38 

37 

40 

44 

51 

52 

53 
57 
60 


v 


MAPS 


byhia,  Mesopotamia  and  adjacent  lands  .  .  Frontispiece 

PALESTINE,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  .  .  .At  end  of  book 


SYRIA  AND  THE 
HOLY  LAND 


THE  HISTORY 

SYRIA,  chiefly  because  she  includes  Phoenicia  and 
Palestine,  has  been  of  greater  significance  to  man¬ 
kind,  spiritually  and  materially,  than  any  other  single 
country  in  the  world. 

The  home  of  two  of  the  monotheisms  which  have  spread 
round  the  earth,  and  close  neighbour  to  that  of  the  third, 
Syria  holds  sites  sacred  to  them  all,  and  is  still  the  resort 
of  their  pilgrims  from  nearly  every  nation  under  the  sun. 
To  the  farthest  Christian  the  land  is  almost  as  familiar  as 
his  own;  his  Bible  is  her  geography  from  Beersheba  to 
Antioch,  and  her  history  from  Abraham  to  Paul.  Above 
all,  she  is  the  land  of  his  Lord’s  Nativity,  Ministry,  Cross 
and  Resurrection;  for  the  traditional  scenes  of  which 
Christian  sects  have  fought  with  each  other  or  held  a  jeal¬ 
ous  truce  under  the  contemptuous  patronage  of  the  Turk. 
To  the  Jew  and  the  Mohammedan  equally  with  the  Chris¬ 
tian,  Jerusalem  is  “The  Holy  City.”  The  Rock,  from 
which  rose  the  great  Altar  in  front  of  the  Temple  of 
Israel,  is  for  the  heart  of  the  Moslem  the  spot  on  which 
his  Prophet  prayed,  and  inferior  in  sanctity  only  to  the 
Kaaba  of  Mecca.  In  Hebron,  the  J ew,  the  Christian,  and 
the  Mohammedan  have,  each  in  his  turn,  built  and  dedi¬ 
cated  the  Sanctuary  which  covers  the  tombs  of  the  com- 

5 


6 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


mon  Fathers  of  their  Faiths.  The  nerves  of  all  three  re¬ 
ligions  still  quiver  in  the  soil  of  Syria,  and  sometimes 
round  the  same  stones.  We  can  feel  the  acuteness  of  the 
problems  which  thus  arise  in  her  administration.  They 
have  been  complicated  by  the  political  envies  and  in¬ 
trigues  of  half  Asia  and  all  Europe. 

Nowhere  else  has  so  much  history  run  into  or  through 
so  narrow  a  space.  The  storm-centre  of  the  Ancient  East, 
the  debatable  ground  between  its  rival  Empires  in  Mesopo¬ 
tamia  and  on  the  Nile,  and  between  their  Greek  successors, 
the  Seleucids  and  Ptolemies,  Syria  was  for  three  thou¬ 
sand  years  the  field  upon  which  their  civilisations  clashed, 
mingled  and  found  a  common  deflection  to  the  West  by  the 
islands  of  the  Mediterranean.  Open  eastward  to  Arabia, 
Syria  has  drawn  the  substance  of  her  populations  from  the 
hordes  which  that  fertile  mother  but  indigent  nurse  of 
men  is  ever  ready  to  foist  upon  the  comparative  abun¬ 
dance  of  her  neighbours.  The  slender  Syrian  fringes  to¬ 
wards  the  desert,  over  which  at  other  times  those  hordes 
have  easily  drifted,  were  built  by  the  Romans  into  the 
eastern  Limes  of  their  Empire;  and  within  this  bulwark 
the  land  flourished  to  the  aspect  of  a  second  Greece.  Syria 
similarly  served  the  Byzantines. 

On  the  decay  of  the  Byzantine  Empire  she  formed  the 
first  prey  of  the  Moslem  conquerors  (634-640  a.d.),  pro¬ 
vided  for  nearly  a  century  the  seat  of  the  Khalifate 
(661-750),  relapsed  between  the  African  and  Asiatic  rivals 
for  that  office  into  her  old  debatableness  for  three  cen¬ 
turies  more,  and  then  for  the  second  time  became,  as  she 
was  predestined  to  be,  the  field  of  decision  between  the 
Cross  and  the  Crescent.  The  Frankish  kingdom  of  Jeru- 
salem  lasted  for  only  eighty-eight  years  (1098-1187),  yet 
its  relics  are  almost  as  numerous  on  the  land  to-day  as 
those  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Gradually  all  Syria  fell 


THE  HISTORY 


7 


back  to  the  Mohammedans,  and  in  1517  became  a  province 
cf  the  Turkish  Empire,  since  when  she  has  had  hardly  any 
annals  save  the  marks  of  her  steady  decay. 

In  1799  Napoleon,  in  his  ambition  to  conquer  Asia, 
marched  from  Egypt  up  the  coast  as  far  as  Esdraelon, 
but  was  forced  back  the  following  year.  From  1832 
to  1840  southern  Syria  came  under  the  power  of 
Mohammed  Ali,  ruler  of  Egypt,  but  was  recovered  by 
the  Turks  with  British  assistance.  In  I860  another 
French  army,  disembarking  at  Beyrout,  liberated  the 
Christians  of  Lebanon,  secured  for  them  under  European 
guarantees  a  separate  administration  with  a  Governor 
of  their  own  faith,  and  laid  to  Damascus  the  first  good 
road  the  land  had  known  since  the  Romans  left. 

The  military  history  of  Syria  may  be  pictured  as  the 
procession  of  nearly  all  the  world’s  conquerors : — 
Thothmes,  Tiglath-Pileser,  Sargon,  Sennacherib  and 
Nebuchadrezzar;  Cambyses  and  Alexander;  Pompey, 
Caesar,  Augustus,  Titus  and  Hadrian;  Omar  and  Saladin; 
Tamerlane;  Napoleon.  And  now  again  she  is  one  of 
the  fronts  on  which  two  ideals  of  civilisation  and  empire 
oppose  their  arms,  but  with  issues  more  momentous  for 
humanity  than  were  ever  fought  out  on  these  same  fields 
between  Semite  and  Greek,  Rome  and  the  East,  or  Frank 
and  Saracen. 

Nor  do  religion  and  war  exhaust  her  importance  to 
the  world.  Syria  bred  and  endowed  the  people  who  first 
brought  the  fruits  of  Eastern  civilisation  to  Europe, 
taught  the  nations  the  value  of  sea-power,  and  set  them 
an  example  in  transmarine  commerce  and  the  planting  of 
colonies. 

Phoenicia  gave  Europe  the  alphabet  (whatever  the 
sources  of  this  may  have  been)  and  some  of  the  finer 
handicrafts,  contributed  at  intervals  to  the  food  of  its 


8 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


peoples,  or  furnished  them  with  luxuries,  or  infected 
them  with  her  own  superstitions  and  vices.  Her  armour, 
bowls  and  webs  are  sung  by  Homer.  Hebrew  and  Greek 
writers  acclaim  the  wealth  of  Phoenician  industries  and 
the  size  and  the  range  of  Phoenician  ships.  Long  before 
the  Christian  era  these  galleys  had  passed  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar  as  far  at  least  as  the  Canaries  and  Scillies; 
and  had  sailed  down  the  Red  Sea  and  along  the  east 
coast  of  Africa.  The  Phoenician  markets  drew  ivory, 
scented  woods,  silk  and  other  stuffs  from  India  and 
China,  and  passed  them  to  the  west.  Conversely  Chinese 
writings  of  an  early  time  rate  the  products  of  Syria,  which 
they  call  Ta-tsin,  above  even  those  of  Babylon.  The 
incense  of  southern  Arabia  reached  the  temples  of  Greece 
and  Italy  through  the  port  of  Gaza. 

It  was  the  same  in  the  earlier  Mohammedan  era.  The 
Arab  geographers,  besides  praising  the  fertility  of  Syria — 
her  corn,  flax  and  wool,  her  oil,  wine  and  figs,  all  in¬ 
digenous,  and  her  adopted  rice,  maize,  sugar,  cotton, 
indigo,  oranges,  and  citrons — magnify  her  exports  west¬ 
ward,  not  only  of  these  products  but  of  porcelain,  silks, 
and  other  fabrics  from  the  Far  East.  Those  were  the 
times  when  in  the  bazaars  of  Aleppo  goods  were  said  to 
be  sold  daily  to  the  amount  of  £10,000.  From  Syrian 
harbours  the  ships  of  Genoa,  Pisa  and  Venice  carried 
cargoes  not  only  to  Italy  and  Spain,  but  after  the  Crusades 
to  the  coasts  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  so  started  the  pros¬ 
perity  of  Antwerp,  Bruges  and  other  towns  of  north¬ 
western  Europe.  At  most  times  the  land  has  as  much 
deserved  the  name  of  “Mediterranean”  as  that  sea  on 
which  her  harbours  open,  and  of  whose  waves  she  was  the 
first  mistress. 

All  the  languages  of  Europe  bear  marks  of  the  Syrian 
commerce.  The  Greek  words  “arrabon,”  interest, 


THE  NAMES 


0 


“mna,”  a  weight,  and  “kabos,”  a  measure;  “klobos,”  bird¬ 
cage,  with  the  names  of  several  animals  and  vegetables; 
(some  add  “Biblos,”  from  the  port  that  exported  the 
papyrus) ;  “chalkos  kuprios,”  from  which  our  copper  is 
derived ;  “Tyrian  purple”  and  “Sidonian  looius” ; 
“Syrian”  as  the  synonym  for  banker  in  Gaul  in  the  fifth 
century;  “Jericho  balsam”;  “damson,”  “damask,” 
“damascene,”  and  the  French  “damasquinure” ;  the 
mediaeval  “charta  Damascena,”  a  cotton-paper;  “cotton,” 
itself ;  “mohair”  and  “moire,”  from  “muhayyar,”  the 
“choice”  stuffs  of  Antioch;  “muslin”  from  Mosul,  but 
through  Aleppo ;  “Latakia” ;  “carat”  (through  Arabic, 
though  previously  from  the  Greek)  ;  “camlet,”  “saffron” 
and  “civet” ;  “sherbet,”  “sorbet”  and  “syrup,”  and  the 
“electuaire  d’Acre”;  probably  “sugar,”  “candy,”  “lemon” 
and  “orange”  (if  not  through  Spain)  ;  the  “shalot”  from 
Ascalon,  the  “carob”  or  locust-bean ;  “lute”  (Arabic  el-‘ud) 
and  “rebeck,”  “ammiral,”  “arsenal”  and  “douane” — are 
some  reminders  of  what  Syria  has  scattered  out  of  her 
lap  to  the  extremes  of  Europe,  or  handed  over  from  the 
opposite  confines  of  Asia. 

These  proofs  at  once  of  her  fertility  and  of  her  supreme 
advantage  of  position  are  lavish  everywhere  in  her  history, 
except  under  Turkish  rule,  and  are  pledges  of  the  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  her  future  when  the  hands  of  the  Turk  shall 
at  last  have  been  lifted  from  her  suffering  soil. 


THE  NAMES 

BEFORE  we  examine  the  form  of  the  country  a  few 
words  are  needed  upon  its  nomenclature.  The 
names,  both  general  and  local,  have  always  been  elastic, 
stretching  and  shrinking  by  turns  or  even  sometimes 


10 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


springing  to  a  distance  from  their  original  sites.  For  this 
there  are  two  reasons:  the  frequency  of  foreign  rule  and 
the  migrations  of  the  natives.  In  ignorance  or  for  the 
convenience  of  administration  conquerors  have  altered 
the  areas  of  the  wider  names,  while  the  popular  usage 
preserved  their  original  limits  or  but  slowly  followed  the 
official  example.  And  in  course  of  migration  due  to  war, 
famine  or  pestilence  the  inhabitants  of  villages,  and  even 
of  towns,  have  removed  the  names  of  these  to  their  new 
settlements.  It  need  hardly  be  added  that  in  their  eager¬ 
ness  to  locate  Biblical  scenes  hosts  of  guessing  pilgrims 
have  further  confused  the  nomenclature  of  the  Holy  Land. 

We  owe  the  name  Syria  to  the  Greeks.  Tradition 
describes  it  as  an  abbreviation  of  Assyria.  But  it  is 
more  probably  derived  from  Suri,  the  Babylonian  name 
for  Mesopotamia  with  Asia  Minor  as  far  as  the  Halys  and 
with  an  uncertain  extension  south  of  the  Euphrates.  In 
partial  conformity  to  this  the  Greeks  may  at  first  have 
meant  by  Syria  everything  between  the  Caucasus  and 
Egypt.  But  the  name  shrank  south  of  the  Taurus  and 
Euphrates ;  and  the  Roman  province  of  Syria  was  bounded 
by  that  range  and  river  on  the  north,  the  Levant  on  the 
west,  the  desert  which  is  Arabia  on  the  east,  and  the  Wady- 
ek-Arish — the  frontier  of  Egypt — on  the  south.  To  all 
westerners  and  to  the  native  Greeks  this  practically  is  the 
Syria  of  to-day.  The  Arabs  call  it  esh-Sha,  “The  Left” 
or  North  of  the  Arabian  Peninsula,  corresponding  to 
el- Yemen,  “The  Right”  or  the  South.  • 

From  the  first  three  adjectives  were  added  to  distin¬ 
guish  the  main  divisions  of  the  country.  Coele — or  Hol¬ 
low — Syria,  originally  the  Orontes  valley  and  the  great 
trench  between  the  Lebanon s,  was  thence  loosely  stretched 
over  all  southern  Syria  except  Phoenicia  and  then  (as  in 
Roman  times)  restricted  to  Anti-Lebanon  and  the  regions 


THE  NAMES 


11 


beyond  Jordan.  Phoenician  Syria  and  Philistine,  or 
Palestine,  Syria,  were  the  two  coastal  regions  inhabited  by 
those  peoples.  But  first  in  Greek  and  thence  in  other 
European  languages  these  adjectives  became  nouns — 
Piicenicia  and  Palestine.  By  a  curious  diversity  of 
fortune,  while  the  former  remained  within  its  original 
limits  on  the  coast  from  a  little  south  of  Carmel  north¬ 
wards,  Palestine  was  carried  east  and  north  till  it  covered 
the  land  to  the  foot  of  Lebanon  and  over  Jordan  to  the 
desert.  This  is  perhaps  a  unique  instance  of  the  gradual 
application  to  almost  the  whole  of  a  country  of  the  name 
of  a  tribe  who  never  occupied  more  than  a  fraction  of  its 
surface  and  had  already  disappeared  from  its  history. 

The  name  Canaan — Kena‘an,  also  Kna‘ — perhaps 
meaning  “Lowland,”  is  confined  by  Babylonian  documents 
of  the  fourteenth  century  B.C.  to  Phoenicia,  but  in  the 
form  Kenahhi  was  used  by  Egyptians  of  the  maritime 
plain  from  Gaza  northwards.  Thence,  like  “Palestine/’ 
it  stretched  both  in  Hebrew  and  Christian  use  over  all  the 
country  south  of  Lebanon.  In  the  Old  Testament  Canaan- 
ite  means  sometimes  Phoenician,  sometimes  any  of  the 
tribes  on  the  plains, .  as  distinguished  from  those  on  the 
hills,  and  sometimes  covers  all  the  inhabitants  whom 
Israel  found  in  the  land;  while  “the  lip  of  Canaan”  was 
the  one  language  spoken  in  Palestine  of  which  Phoenician, 
Hebrew  and  Moabite  were  little  more  than  dialects. 

The  name  of  another  ancient  tribe,  the  Amorites,  i3 
applied  by  some  Old  Testament  writers  to  the  inhabitants 
before  Israel  of  the  Western  Range  and  of  part  of  the 
Eastern,  by  others  to  all  the  pre-Israelite  peoples  and  by 
Babylonian  documents  to  Western  Palestine  as  a  whole. 
In  the  English  Old  Testament  the  names  “Syria”  and 
“Syrians”  render  the  Hebrew  Aram,  the  designation  of 
the  fourth  Semitic  race  which,  with  Phoenicians,  Hebrews 


12 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLYr  LAND 


and  Arabs,  has  seriously  contested  the  possession  of  the 
country.  Sometimes  in  ancient  literature  the  name 
Arabia  included  Syria,  just  as  the  Turkish  ‘Arabistan 
still  does;  but  Arabia  is  properly  everything  to  the  south 
and  east  of  Syria. 

BOUNDARIES — EXTERNAL  AND  INTERNAL 


THE  natural  boundaries  of  Syria  have  been  stated: 

N.,  the  Euphrates  and  the  Taurus  Range;  W.,  the 
Levant;  E.,  the  Arabian  Desert;  and  S.,  the  Desert  of 
Egypt,  on  a  line  drawn  from  Rafa  or  ekArish  to  the  head 
of < the  Gulf  of  Akaba.  These  enclose  some  400  miles  N. 
and  S.  bv  70  to  100  W.  and  E. 

4/ 

The  form  of  the  land  may  be  generally  described  as 
on  five  parallel  lines  running  N.  and  S.  between  the  Sea 
and  the  Desert,  as  shown  below. 

N. 


Sea. 

The 

Coast. 

The 

Maritime 

Tlain 

{partial). 

The 

Western 

Bange. 

The 

Orontes- 
J  ordan- 
Arahah- 
Valley. 

The 

Eastern 

Bange. 

Desert. 

S. 


But  these  lines  are  neither  regular  nor  uniform.  Each 
has  modifications  of  direction,  of  level  and  of  character, 
which  give  the  surface  of  the  land  a  complicated  variety 
and  have  always  divided  its  populations  both  politically 
and  economically.  Like  Switzerland,  Syria  has  within 
herself  natural  frontiers  more  definite  than  some  of  those 
which  separate  her  from  the  neighbouring  countries.  Two 


BOUNDARIES— EXTERNAL  AND  INTERNAL  13 


such  cross-divisions  aro  to  be  emphasised  above  the  rest, 
not  because  they  are  the  greatest  (for  they  are  not),  but 
because  they  effect  a  convenient  partition  of  Syria  into 
three  provinces. 

The  first  is  just  N.  of  Tripoli,  where  the  Western 
Range  is  cleft  by  the  Nahr  el-Kebir,  which  sharply  dis¬ 
tinguishes  the  Nusairiyeh  portion  of  the  range  from  the 
Lebanons ;  as  the  Eleutherus  of  the  Greeks,  this  river  fre¬ 
quently  formed  a  political  frontier.  And  the  second  is 
just  N.  of  Tyre,  the  Nahr  el-Kasimiyeh,  which  also  cleaves 
the  Western  Range  separating  Lebanon  from  the  hills  of 
Galilee  and  then  bends  N.  into  the  Beka‘  or  valley  between 
the  Lebanons,  while  its  main  direction  W.  to  E.  is  fairly 
continued  over  Jordan  by  the  foot  of  Anti-Lebanon  round 
to  Damascus.  There  are  thus  three  distinct  divisions : 

N. 


1.  Northern  Syria: 

Froui  the  Taurus  to  the  Nahr  el-Kebir . 

2.  The  Lebanons:  with  Damascus. 

3.  Palestine  : 

From  the  Nahr  el-Kasimiyeh  to  the  IV.  el-(  Arish. 


s. 

This  last  is  further  divided  by  the  Plain  of  Esdraelon, 
interrupting  the  Western  Range  and  affording  a  broad 
access  from  the  coast  to  the  Jordan  Valley  and  Eastern 
Palestine,  but  seldom  an  effective  border;  and  by  Mount 
Carmel,  shooting  over  from  the  Western  Range  to  the  sea 
and  separating  Esdraelon  from  the  Maritime  Plain,  but 
never  either  a  military  or  a  political  frontier.  The  rest 
of  the  Western  Range  passes  imperceptibly  from  the  hills 
and  valleys  of  Samaria  to  the  compact  tableland  of  Judaea, 


14 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


along  which  it  is  separated  from  the  Maritime  Plain  by 
the  lower  hut  distinct  range  of  the  Shephelah;  and 
descends  very  gradually  upon  what  the  Hebrews  called  the 
Negeb. 

Nor  has  even  that  most  singular  feature  of  the  earth’s 
surface,  the  Orontes- Jordan  Valley,  continued  by  the 
Arabah  to  the  Red  Sea,  proved  a  strong  frontier,  except 
at  its  deepest  part  where  it  is  filled  by  the  Dead  Sea.  Per 
the  fertility  of  the  party  of  it  called  the  Beka‘  links 
rather  than  divides  the  Lebancns;  the  upper  Jordan  and 
its  lakes  have  not  always  separated  Galilee  from  Jaulan 
and  Hauran;  generally  Gilead  and  sometimes  even  Moab 
belonged  to  Samaria,  and  under  the  Turks  Gilead  at  least 
has  been  administered  from  Nablus;  while,  further  south, 
the  ancient  Edom  lay  on  both  sides  of  the  Arabah  and 
to-day  the  same  Arab  tribes  pasture  their  flocks  in  each 
region  at  different  seasons. 

On  the  Eastern  Range,  which  rises  only  south  of  the 
Nahr  el-Kebir,  there  is  across  Anti-Lebanon  a  high  valley 
or  pass  (4,500  feet)  that  gives  access  from  the  Beka‘ 
to  Damascus  down  the  course  of  the  Abana.  The  southern 
skirts  of  Hermon,  falling  steeply  to  the  tableland  of 
Hauran,  mark  a  border  between  different  forms  of  culture, 
and  a  demarcation  convenient  for  minor  political  pur¬ 
poses,  but  they  are  not  a  real  frontier.  The  volcanic 
Hauran  again  is  separated  from  the  limestone  Gilead  by 
the  abrupt  rift  through  which  the  Yarmuk  flows,  an 
ethnic  and  political  border  nearly  always  in  ancient  times. 
Gilead’s  hills  pass  imperceptibly  into  the  plateau  of  Moab, 
as  Samaria’s  into  that  of  Judaea,  but  on  the  south  of  Moab 
there  are  two  successive  trenches,  the  Wady  Mo  jib,  the 
ancient  Arnon  2,000  feet  deep,  and  the  Wady  el-Hesi  less 
deep  and  abrupt,  both  of  which  have  proved  historical 
frontiers. 


THE  COAST 


15 


In  any  political  re-distribution  of  Syria  all  these  fea¬ 
tures  must  be  taken  into  account. 


THE  COAST 

T  N  general  the  Coast  is  one  of  the  straightest  in  the 
world,  with  no  deep  estuary  or  gulf  (save  at  the  ex¬ 
treme  north),  and  no  protecting  island  of  any  size.  But 
the  part  of  it  south  of  Mount  Carmel  differs  substantially 
from  that  to  the  north.  From  Carmel  to  the  Delta  of  the 
Nile  is  a  stretch  of  sandhills  and  low  rocks,  with  the 
mountains  well  back  from  the  sea,  and  no  broad  river 
mouth  or  other  natural  harbour.  The  prevailing  winds 
are  from  the  S.W.,  and,  with  strong  sea-currents  from  the 
same  direction  carrying  the  Nile  mud,  have  always  tended 
to  silt  up  the  outlets  of  the  small  streams,  and  the  one 
or  two  artificial  harbours,  which  like  Herod’s  Caesarea 
have  been  urged  upon  so  inhospitable  a  shore.  Alexander 
wisely  built  his  great  port  at  the  west  instead  of  at  the 
east  or  Pelusiac  end  of  the  Delta.  At  Carmel  and  north¬ 
wards,  where  the  hills  draw  to  the  coast,  short  capes  jut 
out,  there  are  bays,  sheltered  some  from  two  directions, 
some  from  only  one;  and  a  few  islets  form  harbours 
sufficient  for  the  largest  ships  of  antiquity. 

We  see  why  the  Phoenician  power  gathered  and  flour¬ 
ished  just  here,  for  besides  the  protection  for  shipping  the 
sands  are  rife  with  materials  for  glass,  and  the  shallow 
waters  teem  with  fish,  sponges,  and  the  murex ■,  the  source 
of  the  purple;  metal  and  timber  once  abounded  in  the 
hills,  and  round  or  through  these  there  is  access  to  the 
grain  fields  of  the  interior,  and  to  Damascus  and  Aleppo. 
How  humble  the  beginnings  of  Phoenicia  were  may  be 
perceived  from  the  names  of  its  towns:  Akka  perhaps 


16 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


only  “hot  sands”;  Tyre,  “Rock”;  Sidon,  “Fishing-place”; 
the  later  Zarephath,  “Smelting  place” ;  and  Beyrout, 
“Wells.”  South  of  Carmel  the  ships  of  to-day  must  ride 
at  some  distance  off  Jaffa  when  discharging  their  cargoes 
and  as  yet  even  off  Haifa.  But  they  can  anchor  more 
securely  in  the  harbour  of  Beyrout  behind  its  great  cape 
and  within  two  moles  thrown  out  from  this. 

Jaffa,  the  port  for  Jerusalem,  and  for  the  grains  and 
fruits  of  Philistia  and  Sharon,  had  in  1910  exports  over 
£600,000  and  imports  of  one  million  sterling;  in  1912 
those  together  are  said  to  have  risen  to  £2,080,000.  Haifa 
is  nearest,  and  has  access  by  rail,  to  the  wheatfields  of 
Esdraelon  and  Hauran,  with  annual  exports  before  the 
war  of  £200,000  and  imports  of  £600,000.  Beyrout  con¬ 
centrates  the  silk  manufactures  of  Lebanon,  most  of  the 
local  trade  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  by  rail  and  road  a 
large  part  of  the  trade  of  Damascus;  its  exports,  mostly 
raw  silk  for  Marseilles,  were  reckoned  in  1910  to  be  over 
£800,000,  and  its  imports  two  millions  sterling.1  At 
Tripoli,  so  called  because  it  was  the  seat  of  the  Phoenician 
League,  Tyre-Sidon-Arvad,  there  are  even  greater  possi¬ 
bilities  of  a  good  port  than  at  Beyrout;  for  a  string  of 
islets  hangs  off  its  cape,  and  Tripoli  has  access  to  Aleppo 
up  the  Nahr  el-Kebir  with  the  promise,  if  not  already 
the  fact,  of  a  railway.  Its  annual  imports  are  said  to  be 
£300,000  and  its  exports  £400,000. 

Northwards  Mara  thus  and  Antaradus  were  the  main¬ 
land  settlements  of  the  Phoenician  island  Arvad,  now 
Ruad;  and  Antaradus,  as  Tortosa  (now  Tartus),  abo 
flourished  under  the  Crusaders.  Latakia,  the  ancient 
Laodicea-ad-mare,  has  a  small  harbour,  protected  from 

1  About  10m.  N.  of  Beyrout  and  connected  by  a  good  road  and  a 
light  railway  lies  Juneh,  a  flourishing  little  town,  whose  harbour 
attracts  sailing  vessels  and  gives  promise  of  greater  prosperity. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN 


17 


the  north  by  a  cape;  it  prospered  in  the  early  Christian 
period  as  the  port  of  Antioch,  and  still  carries  on  a  con¬ 
siderable  trade  in  tobacco,  sponges  and  silk.  Ruins  and 
a  choked  harbour  are  all  that  remain  of  Seleucia, 
Antioch’s  previous  port  in  Greek  times.  Lastly,  Alexan- 
dretta,  the  safest  and  most  convenient  harbour  on  the  coast 
but  troubled  with  fever,  commands  an  import  and  export 
trade  of  the  combined  value  of  three  millions  sterling; 
inland  it  traffics  with  Aleppo,  and  is  to  be,  if  it  is  not 
already,  connected  with  the  Baghdad  railway. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN 

THE  second  of  the  parallel  lines  on  which  Syria  is 
disposed,  is  not  continuous.  Virtually  confined  to 
the  south  of  Mount  Carmel  with  a  few  miles  more  to 
the  north,  the  maritime  plain  dwindles  to  a  ribbon  between 
Lebanon  and  the  sea,  and  recovers  only  in  patches  along 
the  rest  of  the  coast.  But  its  breadth  south  of  Carmel 
is  of  the  highest  importance  to  Syria  from  both  a  military 
and  an  economic  point  of  view,  especially  if  we  take  along 
with  it  the  short  range  of  the  Shephelah  or  “low  hills,” 
which  intervenes  between  the  plain  and  the  abrupt  table¬ 
land  of  Judaea. 

On  the  extreme  south,  eight  or  ten  sandy  marshes  from 
Egypt,  stands  Gaza,  “the  vestibule  of  Syria,”  and  the 
port  and  market  of  the  Arabs  of  the  southern  desert. 
Thence  to  Carmel  spread  some  of  Syria’s  most  fertile 
fields,  and  across  them  runs  the  main  highway  of  her  war 
and  traffic.  This  keeps  well  inland  so  as  to  avoid  the  sands 
and  marshes  of  the  coast,  and  passes  the  Philistine  towns 
which  flourished  on  its  trade  but  suffered  from  the  armies 
whom  its  clear  course  has  attracted  both  north  and  south, 


18 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


as  well  as  from  the  plagues  which  it  has  frequently  carried 
out  of  Egypt. 

This  level  and  famous  stage  of  the  route  between  the 
Nile  and  Mesopotamia  might  compass  Carmel  either  by 
the  sea  or  (as  most  armies  and  caravans  have  preferred) 
by  one  of  three  easy  passes  through  the  low  hills  between 
Carmel  and  the  western  range,  on  to  Esdraelon;  whence 
their  march  might  continue  either  coastwise  by  the 
Phoenician  cities  or  inland  across  Jordan  (whether  south 
or  north  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee)  to  Damascus,  and  so  to 
the  Euphrates.  On  the  maritime  plain  this  road  is  blessed 
with  fairly  sufficient  water,  and  there  are  no  great  natural 
obstacles,  but  it  is  exposed,  as  most  invaders  by  it  have 
experienced,  to  attacks  down  the  various  valleys  and 
slopes  which  fall  from  the  Western  Range. 

The  Maritime  Plain  is  very  fertile.  Philistia  and 
Sharon  with  the  wider  valleys,  that  debouch  upon  them 
from  the  hills,  bear  good  wheat,  millet,  vines,  oranges, 
citrons,  and  flourishing  vegetables.  Date-palms  do  well 
in  the  south,  and  the  olive  is  as  fruitful  as  anywhere  on 
the  limestone  hills  of  the  Shephelah,  on  which  also  barley- 
fields  are  numerous.  But  these  proofs  of  the  capacity  of 
the  soil  render  only  more  obvious  the  waste,  the  want  of 
public  utilities  and  the  poverty  of  the  native  peasantry. 
The  German  and  Jewish  colonies  which  have  been  planted 
since  18G8  and  1870  respectively,  are  convincing  evidence 
of  the  wealth  everywhere  possible  to  industry  and  a  little 
science,  were  there  only  a  government  which  dealt  justly 
with  the  cultivator  and  assisted  his  toil  by  proper  roads, 
irrigation  and  drainage.  The  Germans,  from  Wiirttem- 
burg  and  of  the  Temple  sect,  introduced  better  methods 
of  agriculture  in  the  belief  that  the  Lord  would  come  to 
the  land,  when  it  was  made  ready  for  Him;  and  the 
example  of  their  practice  if  not  of  their  faith  has  been 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN 


19 


followed  more  powerfully  by  Jewish  settlers,  driven  from 
eastern  Europe  by  persecution,  but  equipped  by  capitalists 
of  their  own  creed.  The  Germans  have  two  colonies,  one 
by  Jaffa  and  one  at  Haifa  under  Mount  Carmel,  whose 
slopes  their  industry  has  converted  into  vineyards  not 
unlike  those  of  the  Rhine  or  the  ISTeckar. 

Of  the  forty-five  to  fifty  Jewish  settlements  in  Pales¬ 
tine  since  1870 — said  to  have  contained  before  the  war 
some  13,000  people— there  are  ten  or  eleven  near  Jaffa 
and  southward,  and  others  on  the  southern  slopes  of  Car¬ 
mel — altogether  with  a  membership  of  over  6,000.  The 
improvements  they  have  effected  in  spite  of  the  obstruc¬ 
tions  of  the  government  and  the  agricultural  inexperience 
of  most  of  the  settlers,  have  been  wonderful,  as  the  present 
writer  can  testify  from  a  knowledge  of  their  progress 
since  1880. 

They  have  doubled,  and  in  some  cases,  trebled  the 
annual  yield  of  the  acres  they  cultivate.  They  have  laid 
down  new  roads.  They  have  introduced  new  stocks  of 
fruit,  and  by  researches  at  their  experimental  station 
are  said  to  have  developed  varieties  of  grain  and  fruit 
fitted  to  withstand  the  sirocco  and  other  rigours  of  the 
climate.  They  have  reduced  the  fevers  of  some  swampy 
districts  by  a  lavish  planting  of  eucalyptus,  known  to  the 
Arabs  as  “the  Jews’  tree.”  In  part  they  have  overcome 
the  menace  of  the  drifting  sands  of  the  coast.  Their 
exports  of  wine  to  Europe  had  already  become  consider¬ 
able.  The  influence  of  their  example  upon  the  native 
peasantry  may  be  appreciated. 

Esdraelon,  which  carries  the  same  conditions  of  fertility 
almost  as  far  inland  as  Jordan,  is  in  its  western  half  one 
vast  wheat  field:  now  partly  the  property  of  the  Sultan 
and  partly  that  of  a  wealthy  Greek  family.  But  I  under- 


so 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


stand  that  just  before  the  war  a  Jewish  colony  or  two  had 
been  planted  on  its  margin. 


THE  WESTERN  RANGE 

THE  mountain-ranges  of  Syria  present  an  extraor¬ 
dinary  variety  of  height  and  of  surface.  From  the 
heated  coasts  and  valleys  at  their  skirts  they  rise  in  parts 
to  over  ten  thousand  feet,  at  which  in  that  latitude  the 
snow  seldom  disappears.  Besides  the  natural  terraces 
afforded  by  the  limestone  structure  of  their  slopes,  the 
ranges  contain  an  unusually  large  proportion  of  high  val¬ 
leys  and  table-lands  of  considerable  fertility,  buttressed  or 
surmounted  by  steep  bare  ridges.  From  all  this  have 
arisen  many  facts  of  political  and  economic  importance. 

The  mountains  of  Syria  have  not  only  been  the  last  of 
her  lines  to  fall  to  foreign  invaders — except  in  the  singular 
case  of  Israel.  Throughout  her  troubled  history  they  have 
also  been  the  refuges  of  the  more  independent  and  there- 
fore  intelligent  and  enterprising  elements  of  her  native 
population.  And  both  in  the  Greek  Period  and  in  modern 
times  they  have  attracted  settlers  from  the  west.  There¬ 
fore,  we  find  on  them  to-day  a  great  variety  of  the  smaller 
races  and  sects.  There  is  often  a  less  scattered  population, 
with  more  people  to  the  square  mile,  than  on  some  of  the 
richer  plains  below.  And  while  in  parts  agriculture  and 
industry  flourish,  in  parts  also  these  have  been  pushed  up 
to  levels  where  nature  gives  them  little  encouragement,  and 
the  only  reason  why  men  should  live  and  labour  on  such 
shelves  is  the  absence  of  security  below.  Since  1880 
there  has  been  a  considerable  emigration  from  the  Syrian 
mountains  to  America  and  Australia.  When  Syria  once 
more  enjoys  a  just  government  there  may  follow  by  migra- 


THE  WESTERN  RANGE 


21 

tion  to  the  plains  a  still  further  abandonment  of  some  of 
the  loftier  levels  on  which  agriculture  is  now  precariously 
pursued. 

All  this  is  especially  true  of  the  Western  Range. 

Starting  (as  has  been  said)  from  the  Taurus,  the  West¬ 
ern  Range  runs,  as  the  Giaour  Dagh,  south  to  the  Orontes 
and  close  to  the  coast  on  a  general  height  of  from  four 
to  six  thousand  feet,  but  with  loftier  peaks.  This  was 
the  Mons  Amanus  of  the  ancients,  the  boundary  between 
Syria  and  Cilicia,  and  its  chief  pass  (by  Beilan)  was 
known  as  the  Syrian  Gate.  Its  slopes  are  favourable  to 
the  vine  and  other  fruits,  parts  are  covered  with  ever¬ 
green,  oaks,  and  firs;  streams  abound,  and  the  range  is 
crossed  by  roads  from  Alexandretta  to  Antioch  and  Aleppo, 
the  Beilan  pass  still  the  easiest. 

South  of  the  Orontes,  the  range  bears  the  name  Jebel 
en-Nusairiyeh,  till  its  next  break  in  the  valley  of  the  Nahr 
el-Kebir.  Besides  the  bare  Jebel  Akra  it  consists  of  a 
series  of  limestone  hills  clothed  with  pines,  oaks,  and 
various  shrubs,  and  of  valleys  with  clear  streams,  strips 
of  corn-land  and  olive  orchards.  There  is  much  good 
grass.  The  inhabitants,  not  Semitic  but  of  the  Iranian 
type,  and  practising  a  variety  of  the  Mohammedan  re¬ 
ligion,  mixed  with  Pagan  and  Christian  elements,  have  an 
evil  reputation,  but  are  said  by  travellers  to  cultivate  their 
lands  and  parts  of  the  neighbouring  plains  with  a  care  and 
neatness  beyond  other  natives  of  Syria.  They  live  in  scat¬ 
tered  hamlets. 

South  of  the  Nahr  el-Kebir  the  range  bears  the  name  of 
Lebanon  to  the  Nahr  el-Kasimiyeh,  just  north  of  Tyre, 
a  length  of  105  miles.  It  rises  from  the  narrow  coast  by 
steep  slopes,  buttresses  and  shoulders  with  many  terraces, 
natural  and  artificial,  that  are  cultivated  to  heights  of 
four,  five,  or  even  six  and  seven  thousand  feet,  and  it  is 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


22 

dotted  with  villages  and  monasteries.  Wheat  is  said  to 
grow  up  to  6,000  feet,  and  vines  from  3,000  to  nearly 
5,000  feet,  with  olives  still  higher.  There  are  many  other 
fruit  trees,  but  the  principal  culture  is  that  of  the  mul¬ 
berry,  grown  for  the  production  of  silk  cocoons.  It  is 
reported  that  in  the  Lebanon  and  the  vilayet  of  Beyrout 
there  were  132  steam  spinning  factories  with  2,250  looms, 
and  that  Beyrout  annually  shipped  to  Marseilles  raw  silk 
and  cocoons  to  the  value  of  £800,000.  Silk  is  also  woven 
in  the  mountain  for  native  use. 

Above  and  behind  these  cultivated  zones  Lebanon  rises 
to  a  high  bleak  ridge,  bare  or  dotted  with  pines  and  shrub, 
which  shuts  out  the  east,  and  by  its  loftiness  exercises  a 
powerful  influence  on  the  climate,  not  only  of  the  slopes 
below  but  of  the  whole  of  southern  Syria.  The  summits 
of  the  ridge  are  Jebel  Makmal  and  Dahr  el-Kodib  above 
the  Cedars  (both  just  over  10,000  feet),  Jebel  Muneitra 
and  Jebel  Sannin  (over  9,000).  From  this  ridge  the  east 
side  of  the  range  falls  steeply,  with  but  few  villages  and 
far  less  cultivation  than  on  the  west,  into  the  Beka‘.  The 
Lebanon  is  crossed  by  several  roads  including  that  from 
Tripoli  by  the  famous  Cedars  to  Baalbek  over  a  height 
of  7,000  feet,  and  by  two  lower  passes,  that  on  which  the 
road  and  rail  from  Beyrout  to  Damascus  cross  the  range 
at  about  5,000  feet,  and  that  by  Baruk  slightly  lower. 

South  of  Lebanon  and  the  cleft  of  the  Nahr  el-Kasi- 
miyeh  are  the  highlands  of  Galilee,  of  which  Northern  or 
Upper  Galilee  is  undulating  tableland  surrounded  by  hills 
from  2,000  to  4,000  feet  high,  and  Southern  or  Lower 
Galilee,  parallel  ranges  below  1,900  feet  with  broad  val¬ 
leys  between  them,  and  a  few  depressions  under  500  feet. 
Both  Galilees  are  very  fertile.  There  is  profusion  of 
bush  and  scattered  woodland,  proofs  of  the  possibilities 
of  afforestation,  some  vines,  olives,  and  stretches  of  arable 


THE  WESTERN  RANGE 


23 

ground.  In  ancient  times  “no  part  lay  idle’7 ;  the  olives 
were  said  to  be  easier  to  cultivate  here  than  elsewhere  in 
Syria,  and  the  villages  and  towns  were  frequent.  Under 
good  government  there  might  be  great  wealth  in  Galilee, 
in  a  climate  singularly  happy. 

South  of  these  highlands  the  Western  Range  suffers  its 
greatest  separation  (as  already  noted)  in  the  Plain  of 
Esdraelon,  which  rises  little  above  sea-level  between  the 
coast  and  its  open  descent  to  the  J ordan. 

South  of  Esdraelon  the  Western  Range  rises  again  in 
the  hills  and  high  valleys  of  Samaria,  or  Mount  Ephraim. 
Erom  summits  of  3,000  feet  and  a  watershed  averaging 
2,000,  it  descends  on  the  Maritime  Plain  by  a  gentle  slope 
for  the  most  part  sterile  with  infrequent  breaks  of  olive^ 
groves  and  a  few  villages.  The  fall  of  the  eastern  flank  is 
deeper  and  far  more  rapid,  but  it  relaxes  in  several  broad, 
fertile  valleys.  Within  these  flanks  the  Mount  surprises 
the  visitor  by  the  number  of  its  small  plains,  meadows 
and  vales,  from  one  of  which,  the  Makhneh,  east  and  south¬ 
east  of  Nablus,  comes  some  of  the  finest  wheat  in  Syria; 
the  olives  and  other  fruits  are  excellent.  A  shallow  pass 
cleaves  these  highlands,  that  which  crosses  between  Ebal 
and  Gerizim,  and  holds  N ablus  at  its  centre.  N ablus,  the 
ancient  Shechem,  is  the  natural  capital  of  Palestine  in  a 
very  fertile  district,  with  easy  roads  both  to  the  coast  that 
is  only  twenty-six  miles  off,  and  to  the  fords  of  Jordan  that 
are  not  eighteen.  In  olden  times  Shechem  or  its  successor 
and  neighbour,  the  city  of  Samaria,  held  Gilead  and  even 
Moab  in  its  power,  and  the  Turkish  Government  for  long 
administered  from  Nablus  a  great  part  of  eastern  Pales¬ 
tine. 

The  Samarian  highlands  slowly  close  and  slightly  rise 
to  the  compact  plateau  of  Judgea,  about  2,000  feet  high, 
little  more  than  thirty-five  miles  long  from  Bethel  to  the 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


£4 

south  of  Hebron,  and  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  broad 
from  its  edge  above  the  Shephelah  to  where  on  the  east 
the  level  drops  below  1,200  feet  and  into  desert.  Judaea 
consists  largely  of  stony  moorland  with  rough  scrub  and 
thorns,  but  after  the  winter  rains  there  is  considerable 
herbage.  Sometimes  it  is  less  stony  with  a  little  wheat  and 
more  barley.  Sometimes  it  breaks  into  shallow  glen3  with 
olives,  figs  and  terraces  of  vines.  There  is  no  running 
water.  Ancient  records,  and  the  ruined  terraces  on  the 
glens  and  in  the  defiles  leading  down  to  the  west,  testify 
that  once  even  this,  the  least  attractive  part  of  all  the 
Western  Range,  enjoyed  much  greater  fertility.  The 
olive  thrives  nowhere  better  than  at  the  level,  and  on  the 
limestone,  of  Judaea.  Both  in  the  Jewish  and  the  early 
Moslem  eras  oil  and  wine  were  abundant. 

The  Bible  emphasises  the  pastoral  character  of  Judaea, 
and  many  of  its  greatest  personalities  have  been  shep¬ 
herds;  yet  its  cattle  are  small,  and  its  people  used  to 
covet  the  bulls  and  rams  of  Bashan  and  of  Gilead.  Nor 
are  there  here  any  of  the  physical  conditions  of  a  great 
city — neither  river  nor  trunk  road  nor  convenient  market 
for  the  surrounding  peoples.  Moab  is  shut  off  by  the 
great  gulf  of  the  Dead  Sea ;  and  the  Arabs  of  the  southern 
deserts  resort  to  Gaza  rather  than  to  Hebron.  But  this 
very  aloofness  of  J udsea  guaranteed  her  security  for  longer 
periods  than  was  the  case  with  her  sister  Samaria,  kept 
her  people  more  free  of  alien  influences,  and  while  con¬ 
centrating  the  national  mind  gave  it  greater  opportunity 
of  observing  the  fates  of  other  peoples  and  the  course  of 
history.  Jerusalem,  though  a  tolerable  fortress,  is  not  a 
natural  but  a  spiritual  creation. 

The  narrow  plateau  of  Judah  reaches  its  southern  edge 
a  little  to  the  south  of  Hebron  and  thence  the  range  rolls 
gently  down  in  broad  undulations,  through  which  the 


THE  WESTERN  RANGE 


£5 

Wady  Khulil  winds,  to  Beersheba.  There  is  still  consid¬ 
erable  farming  as  far  as  Dhoheriyah,  the  ancient  Debir, 
some  eleven  miles  from  Hebron,  with  a  few  springs,  pools, 
and  in  the  rainy  season  even  streams.  From  Dhoheriyah 
to  Beersheba  is  a  slope,  much  less  fertile,  of  about  sixteen 
miles  more.  This  forms  as  easy  an  approach  to  Judaea 
as  any,  and  during  the  Jewish  Exile  its  villages  were 
gradually  overrun  by  an  Edomite  drift  from  the  south¬ 
east  Yet  it  was  seldom,  if  ever,  used  by  invaders  with 
the  plateau  as  their  objective ;  for  to  the  south  of  it  across 
the  Negeb  lie  east  and  west  the  steep  and  haggard  ridges 
of  the  desert,  while  the  plains  of  Philistia,  even  though 
they  offer  but  few  and  narrow  avenues  to  Jerusalem,  have 
always  been  more  attractive,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
both  to  the  desert  nomads  and  to  armies  from  Egypt. 

The  Negeb,  as  the  Hebrews  called  it,  the  Parched  Land 
— the  name  is  wrongly  rendered  “the  South”  in  the  author¬ 
ised  version  of  the  Old  Testament — begins  about  Dhoheri¬ 
yah  with  the  decrease  of  fertility  and,  falling  from  about 
1,500  feet  to  (in  parts)  500  above  the  sea,  extends  to 
some  twenty  miles  beyond  Beersheba.  Save  in  patches 
this  is  a  region  of  apparently  sterile  soil  with  wadies  that 
lie  dry  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  but  under  the  rains 
suddenly  brim  with  torrents.  For  centuries  the  Negeb  has 
held  no  settled  life  save  about  the  wells  of  Beersheba,  and 
this  only  in  recent  years.  Arab  nomads  sow  fractions  of 
it  with  barley  or  millet  and  reap  the  most  meagre  of 
crops,  which  south  of  the  Wady  Sheriyah  are  said  to  fail 
totally  every  third  year.  But  the  ruins  of  many  villages — 
some  of  them  small  towns  with  a  careful  architecture — 
and  of  terraces  indicative  of  cultivation,  which  mostly 
date  from  the  Byzantine  period,  prove  that  even  the  Negeb 
has  its  possibilities  under  a  good  government.  The  wasted 
winter  floods  could  be  stored,  and  there  are  probably  many 


20 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


wadies  in  which  water  might  be  drawn  by  digging  for  it. 
But  so  long  as  insecurity  prevails,  wells  are  unprofitable. 


THE  ORONTES-JORDAN-ARABAH  VALLEY 

THE  fourth  of  the  parallel  lines  of  Syria  is  part  of  a 
great  “fault”  extending  from  Armenia  to  the  Gulf 
of  Akaba  on  the  Red  Sea,  and  containing  the  deepest 
trench  on  the  earth’s  surface.  This  begins  at  Lake  Huleh, 
which  is  just  7  feet  above  sea-level,  falls  to  the  Dead  Sea, 
whose  surface  is  1,292  feet  below  the  sea,  and  its  bottom 
1,300  lower  still,  and  rises  again  to  the  sea-level  some 
thirty-five  miles  further  south  in  the  Arabah. 

We  may  start  with  this  line  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Antioch,  where  the  Orontes  (present  name  el-‘Asi)  leaves 
it  to  cut  through  the  Western  Range  to  the  sea.  Here 
is  a  broadish  plain,  el-Amk  (the  Unki  of  the  Assyrians), 
none  of  it  600  feet  above  sea-level  and  extremely  rich. 
The  ancient  prosperity  of  Antioch,  to  which  vast  ruins 
still  testify,  was  due  only  in  part  to  this  fertility;  the 
rest  came  from  through-traffic  to  the  Levant,  most  of 
which  was  long  ago  lost.  From  Antioch  the  valley  of  the 
Orontes  ascends  very  slowly  between  the  Western  Range* 
and  the  edge  of  the  high  plateau  of  N.  Syria;  the  ruins 
of  ancient  townships — averaging,  it  is  said,  one  to  the  mile 
— are  proofs  of  its  natural  resources  and  melancholy  pro¬ 
tests  against  the  incompetence  of  the  Turkish  Govern¬ 
ment. 

At  Hama  (Hamath,  1,015  feet),  an  administrative 
centre  with  80,000  inhabitants,  good  grazing  lands,  manu¬ 
factures  of  cloth  and  leather,  and  considerable  trade  with 
the  Arabs  of  the  neighbouring  desert,  the  valley  is  reached 
by  the  Aleppo  railway,  which  it  carries  on  to  the  Beka2 


THE  QNONTES-JQRDAN-ARABAH-V ALLEY  2? 


Further  on,  from  Homs  (Emesa,  1,660  feet),  also  a  mar¬ 
ket  for  the  Beduin,  with  rich  gardens  and  fields  and  a 
temperate  climate,  a  railway  diverges  to  Tripoli  by  the 
Afihr  el-Kebir,  and  it  is  also  possible  to  reach  Palmyra 
in  five  days  by  carriage  over  the  level  desert.  After 
Homs  the  valley  becomes  the  Beka‘  or  “Cleft”  between  the 
great  Lebanons,  and,  varying  in  breadth  from  6  to  7 
miles,  rises  to  over  3,770  feet  at  the  sources  of  the  Orontes 
about  Baalbek.  Large  parts  of  this  stretch  are  hard  and 
sterile;  there  are  fewer  villages  and  ancient  ruins,  but 
considerable  pasture. 

About  Baalbek  is  the  watershed,  streams  start  south, 
the  Hahr  el-Litani  begins.  The  Beka‘  becomes  very  fer¬ 
tile,  but  even  under  the  western  enterprise  of  recent  years 
it  is  only  partially  cultivated.  Its  ancient  wealth  must 
have  been  far  greater.  Vines  and  other  fruits  flourish, 
there  are  good  trees  and  great  possibilities  for  timber, 
room  and  fit  soil  for  wheat,  and  during  most  of  the  year 
temperate  airs.  The  breadth  is  from  8  to  10  miles. 

From  the  S.  end  of  the  Beka‘  the  Litani  breaks  in  a 
passage  of  its  own  to  the  S.Yv.  and  W.,  to  bound  (as  the 
Kasimiyeh)  the  Lebanon.  But  we  follow  the  main  “fault” 
south  to  where  Jordan  rises.  The  land  here,  about  Has- 
beya,  is  singularly  rich  in  olives  and  vines  at  a  level  of 
rather  over  2,000  feet.  Then  the  descent  is  rapid  through 
good  wheat  lands,  once  well-cultivated,  well-watered 
meadows  with  oaks  and  other  large  trees  to  the  marshes 
and  jungles  of  papyrus  about  Lake  Huleh  (7  feet  above 
the  sea),  with  a  Jewish  agricultural  colony,  and  thence 
over  rugged  country  to  the  Lake  of  Galilee  (682  feet  below 
sea-level).  On  the  FT.W.  shore  of  the  Lake  lies  the  rich 
warm  plain  of  Gennesaret,  whose  ancient  wealth  of  fruit- 
trees  and  corn  might  easily  be  restored  by  drainage  and 
irrigation.  The  fisheries  of  the  Lake  have  always  been 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


28 

rich ;  once  the  pickled  fish  carried  its  name  to  the  markets 
of  Rome.  From  the  Lake  of  Galilee  to  the  Dead  Sea 
the  length  of  the  Jordan  Valley  is  some  65  miles,  with 
a  breadth  varying  from  3  to  14 — most  of  it  good  soil  save 
in  the  wider  bed  which  the  river  fills  in  spring  and  which 
is  mainly  mud  and  jungle  with  a  broad  margin  of  dead 
marl. 

No  part  of  Syria  shows  more  signal  proofs  of  the  min¬ 
gled  neglect  and  oppression  of  the  Turk.  In  the  upper 
portion  about  Beisan  (Bethshan)  flax  abounded  in  the 
Roman  period — the  linen  of  Bethshan  was  then  famous — 
and  maize  and  rice  were  plentiful  in  the  Mohammedan 
era.  Lower  down,  towards  Jericho,  groves  of  the  date- 
palm  stretched  for  miles,  there  were  gardens  of  balsam 
farmed  by  the  Roman  Government,  and  before  and  during 
the  Crusades  the  sugar-cane  was  cultivated.  Wheat  grows 
well  in  many  parts — up  to  the  stirrups  of  the  rider  on  the 
broad  plains  opposite  Jericho.  A  large  part  of  the  Ghor, 
as  this  stretch  of  the  valley  is  called,  was  appropriated  by 
the  last  Sultan,  and  to  that  Imperial  act  are  due  a  few 
recent  improvements  in  its  cultivation. 

How  much  more  might  be  effected  by  a  system  of  irriga¬ 
tion — less  from  the  Jordan  itself,  for  its  bed  is  deep,  than 
from  its  many  tributaries — is  not  hard  to  estimate.  No¬ 
where  would  irrigation  produce  swifter  or  richer  results, 
for  the  climate  is  sub-tropical.  Wild  plants  and  fruits 
abound  in  a  luxuriance  excelled  only  by  some  of  the 
warmest  and  wettest  valleys  of  East  Africa,  to  the  fauna 
and  flora  of  which  those  of  the  Gh5r  are  said  to  be  akin. 
The  few  permanent  inhabitants  of  this  hothouse  are  (out¬ 
side  Jericho)  of  a  blackish,  fuzzy-haired,  almost  negroid 
aspect.  But  both  the  peasants  of  Western  Palestine  and 
the  Arabs  of  Moab  annually  descend  to  cultivate  portions 
of  the  generous  well-warmed  soil. 


THE  EASTERN  RANGE 


89 


THE  EASTERN  RANGE 

r5nHE  Eastern  range  has  no  counterpart  to  the  two 
^  northmost  sections  of  the  Western.  It  rises  from 
the  Syrian  plateau  south  of  Homs,  and  first  opposes  Leb¬ 
anon  by  Anti-Lebanon  in  almost  equal  length  and  height. 
Anti-Lebanon  falls  into  two  parts  divided  by  a  broad 
plateau  and  the  gorge  of  the  Barada  or  Abana  river.  To 
the  north  of  this  is  J ebel  esh-Sherki,  “Eastern  Mountain,” 
with  no  conspicuous  summit.  On  its  western  flank  falling 
steeply  to  the  Beka‘,  there  is  hardly  a  village.  The  Wady 
Yalifufeh,  which  runs  up  from  Reyak  in  the  Beka‘,  carry¬ 
ing  the  railway  to  Damascus,  has  a  good  stream  and  abun¬ 
dant  vegetation ;  over  the  watershed  is  the  prosperous  vil¬ 
lage  of  ez-Zebedani  with  a  fertile  plain  on  the  head  waters 
of  the  Abana.  Between  the  ridges  that  the  Jebel  esh- 
Sherki  throws  out  eastward  to  the  desert  there  are  a  num¬ 
ber  of  other  brooks  and  copious  springs,  beside  which  some 
8  or  10  villages  thrive  among  their  vineyards,  fig  and 
pomegranate  orchards,  meadows,  less  frequent  wheat  fields 
and  some  poplars.  But  these  lands  are  liable  to  be  overrun 
in  spring  by  the  desert  Arabs  who  exact  blackmail  when 
they  do  not  plunder  or  settle  down  themselves  to  sow 
and  reap  the  fields.  For  even  on  these  heights  may  be  seen 
that  process  which  from  the  earliest  times  has  been  con¬ 
stant  down  all  the  border  of  the  Eastern  Range — the 
gradual  rise  of  tribes  or  of  families  from  the  nomadic  to 
the  agricultural  level. 

The  southern  part  of  Anti-Lebanon,  Mount  Hermon  or 
the  Jebel  esh-Sheikh  (9,050  feet),  has  more  villages  on  its 
western  slopes  and  fewer  on  its  eastern,  with  luxuriant 
vines  to  4,700  feet,  and  above  that  scattered  oaks  and  pines 
and  sometimes  a  thick  bush,  with  wild  but  edible  fruits. 


so 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


Snow  falls  deep  in  winter  to  the  lower  levels  of  the  moun¬ 
tain  and  hardly  disappears  in  summer  from  the  summits. 

But  the  glory  of  Anti-Lebanon  lies  at  its  feet ;  its  chief 
creation  is  Damascus.  The  site  of  this  most  enduring  of 
cities  is  defenceless,  remote  from  the  sea,  and  on  no 
natural  line  of  commerce,  well  out  on  the  desert,  which 
lies  behind  as  well  as  in  front  of  it.  But  the  mountain, 
by  gathering  the  greatest  of  its  waters  to  a  narrow  gorge 
among  its  barren  eastern  folds,  and  then  flinging  the  river 
far  out  on  a  lofty  drainable  plateau  (about  2,250  feet 
above  the  sea),  has  created  some  hundred  and  fifty  square 
miles  of  exuberant  fertility.  From  this,  known  as  the 
Ghuta,  rises  the  oldest,  the  largest  and  richest,  the  most 
steadfast  of  all  the  cities  of  Syria. 

Damascus  has  survived  the  rise  and  fall  of  several 
systems  of  religion.  She  has  been  harried  and  held  by  all 
the  great  empires  of  antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
has  seen  them  perish.  Her  only  rival  in  Syria  has  been 
Antioch,  and  Antioch  has  decayed  while  Damascus  still 
flourishes.  In  addition  to  her  own  fertility,  she  has 
learned  to  bend  to  herself  most  of  the  through  traffic  be¬ 
tween  the  Nile  and  Mesopotamia;  she  is  the  outpost  of 
civilisation  in  the  Desert,  and  an  indispensable  market  to 
the  nomads  of  all  Northern  Arabia.  Before  the  war  her 
population  was  at  least  200,000  with  that  of  her  suburbs ; 
some  rate  it  at  300,000. 

Down  the  southern  slopes  of  Hermon  the  Eastern  Range 
falls  swiftly  upon  the  vast  plateau  of  Hauran,  with  its 
hilly  neighbours  of  Jaulan  and  Jedur  above  the  Lake  of 
Galilee.  The  northern  levels  of  Hauran  are  from  2,000 
to  3,000  feet  above  the  sea,  but  on  the  south  the  plateau 
shelves  off  by  broad  degrees  of  about  1,600  and  1,300  feet 
to  its  limit  in  the  deep  valley  of  the  Yarmuk.  The  surface 
is  volcanic,  its  rocks  basalt,  and  its  soil  a  rich,  red  loam. 


THE  EASTERN  RANGE 


31 


Treeless  and  with  very  few  streams,  except  where  its 
southern  steps  yield  powerful  waterfalls  working  many 
mills,  the  plateau  bears  abundant  wheat  and  good  pas¬ 
ture. 

Hauran  wheat  is  in  repute  all  round  the  Levant.  Even 
in  the  insecurity  to  which  the  Turk  for  the  most  part  leaves 
it,  the  harvests  can  be  heavy;  they  reach  Damascus  or 
the  coast  at  Haifa  in  long  camel  caravans  or,  since  1895, 
by  railway.  Before  the  war  the  annual  yield  of  grain 
was  said  to  be  320,000  tons.  Behind  the  Roman  Limes 
Hauran  was  one  of  the  granaries  of  the  Empire.  The 
ruins  of  public  works — roads,  aqueducts,  reservoirs  and 
fortifications — are  still  visible  across  it.  A  wealth  of 
official  and  domestic  buildings,  with  numerous  inscriptions, 
testifies  to  the  continued  prosperity  of  Hauran  through  the 
Byzantine  period;  but  the  inscriptions  almost  cease  from 
the  time  of  the  Moslem  invasion,  and  the  number  of  aban¬ 
doned  or  half-occupied  towms  evinces  the  insecurity  which 
has  cursed  the  countrv  ever  since.  Recent  Turkish  admin- 
istration  has  somewhat  improved  matters,  but  this  opulent 
province  awaits  a  stronger  government  in  order  to  become 
again  one  of  the  food-producing  centres  of  Western  Asia. 

On  the  east  it  is  bounded  by  the  rocky  fastness  of  the 
Leja,  a  low  deposit  of  hard  lava  some  26  miles  by  20,  the 
refuge  at  all  times  of  turbulent  tribes,  and  by  the  Dnize- 
Mountain  with  a  highly  potential  but  at  present  a  some¬ 
what  precarious  cultivation.  This  eastern  bulwark  of 
Hauran,  some  35  miles  N.  and  S.  by  20  E.  and  W.,  has 
an  average  height  of  between  4,000  and  5,000  feet  (with 
a  summit  of  6,000),  and  gives  birth  to  not  a  few  springs 
and  streams.  It  bears  many  ruins  of  Roman  and  Greek 
civilisation,  and  is  said  to  support  to-day  some  40,000 
Druzes,  with  a  few  “Mountain-Arabs,”  as  they  are  called, 
and  seme  groups  of  Christians.  Beyond  the  mountain  is 


32 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


the  desert — sand  steppes  and  Harras  wastes  of  lava,  in  the 
greatest  of  which  lies  the  generous  oasis  of  Ruhbe,  once  a 
Greek  and  Roman  outpost.  The  desolate  steppes  on  which 
Hauran  runs  out  to  the  southeast,  before  the  actual  desert 
is  reached,  are  rich  in  the  Kali  plant,  of  the  ashes  of  which 
there  is  a  considerable  export  to  the  soap-factories  of  West¬ 
ern  Palestine. 

With  the  Yarmuk  Valley,  the  Sheriat-el-Menadireh,  the 
volcanic  surface  comes  to  an  end  and  the  limestone  hills  of 
Gilead  begin  with  an  average  height  of  over  3,000  feet  and 
some  summits  of  4,000.  Their  ridges  are  covered  with 
woods  of  the  evergreen  oak  and  other  trees.  The  valleys 
and  occasional  plains,  watered  by  numerous  springs  and 
streams,  hold  orchards  of  pomegranate,  apricot  and  olive, 
and  vineyards  with  a  considerable  export  of  raisins;  also 
not  infrequent  fields  of  wheat  and  barley,  especially  on  the 
upper  reaches  of  the  J abbok  towards,  and  in,  the  country 
of  the  ancient  Ammonites.  But  the  feature  of  Gilead’s 
life  which  lives  most  clearly  in  the  traveller’s  memory  is 
the  wealth  of  its  herds  of  cattle,  large  and  small.  For 
Syria,  the  streams  are  exceptionally  numerous. 

Like  those  of  Hauran,  the  fresh  climate  and  fertility 
attracted  Greek  settlers  and  colonies  of  Roman  veterans; 
and  Gilead  still  shows  the  imposing  ruins  of  their  opulent 
cities.  The  theatres  at  Gadara  and  Abila,  the  long  aque¬ 
duct  leading  thither  from  Hauran,  the  columns  at  Arbela 
and  Dion,  the  theatre,  the  agora,  the  colonnaded  streets 
and  the  naumachy  at  Gerasa  show  how  Europeans  once 
prospered  and  enjoyed  life  to  the  full  on  those  last  margins 
of  civilisation  towards  the  desert. 

The  southern  boundary  of  Gilead  towards  Moab  is  as 
indefinite  as  that  of  Samaria  towards  Judaea ;  but  by  the 
Wady  Hesban  the  hills  have  ceased  to  roll,  the  woods  have 
died  out  and  we  are  again  on  a  compact,  treeless  plateau. 


THE  EASTERN  RANGE  33 

The  high  limestone  table-land  of  Moab,  2,300  to  3,300 
feet  above  the  sea,  though — unlike  the  volcanic  Hauran — 
broken  by  ribs  and  scalps  of  grey  rock,  is  for  the  most 
part  excellent  soil  for  wheat,  which  grows  richly  across  its 
spacious  streamless  extent  without  artificial  aids,  on  the 
strength  of  the  heavy  rains  and  snows  of  winter.  Where 
wheat  is  not  possible  the  pasture  is  good,  at  least  through 
the  spring  and  early  summer,  and  lasts  still  longer  in  the 
deep,  well-watered  canons  that  cleave  the  plateau  from  the 
desert  to  the  Dead  Sea. 

On  the  high,  fresh  moors  the  paths  are  all  stamped  with 
the  footmarks  of  sheep  and  cattle,  and  in  the  height  of 
summer  you  will  find  droves  of  them  by  the  perennial 
streams  in  the  bottoms  of  the  canons.  In  ancient  times 
Moab  with  Gilead  provided  meat  and  cereals  for  the  people 
of  Western  Palestine;  and  in  1904  the  present  writer  met 
corn-brokers  from  Jerusalem  negotiating  for  the  harvests 
before  they  Tvere  reaped.  Doughty  says,  not  too  strongly, 
that  at  Kerak  “corn  is  almost  as  the  sands  of  the  sea.” 
All  this  is  in  spite  of  the  extremely  low  rate  of  the  popu¬ 
lation  to  the  square  mile  and  of  the  desert  raids  to  which 
the  eastern  border  lies  almost  flat. 

In  Byzantine  times  Moab  appears  to  have  been  thickly 
peopled.  You  can  stand  hardly  anywhere  on  the  plateau, 
but  eight  or  ten  ruined  villages,  with  Byzantine  traces  on 
them,  are  in  sight ;  and  once  there  were  also  several  largish 
towns  with  public  works,  including  huge  reservoirs  for  the 
winter  rains,  and  not  a  few  other  marks  of  a  high  level  of 
culture.  The  Arab  geographers  praise  the  grapes  and 
almonds  of  Moab,  and  the  English  survey  of  the  northern 
part  of  the  plateau  discovered  many  wine-presses.  But 
except  for  a  very  few  about  Kerak  the  vineyards  have 
vanished  and  there  are  almost  no  other  fruit-trees. 

Bees  abound,  thriving  on  the  wild  blossoms,  and  there 


34 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


is  (I  was  told)  considerable  harvest  of  honey.  One  of 
the  canons,  the  Callirrhoe  of  the  Greeks,  enjeys  great 
wealth  of  hot  springs  and  streams,  and  all  the  canons  af¬ 
ford  a  warm,  and  at  their  mouths  a  tropical  shelter 
throughout  the  year.  The  plateau  itself  is  wind-swept, 
healthy  in  summer  and  with  a  somewhat  rigorous  winter. 
The  land  was  never  famous  for  its  industries,  though  the 
mosaic  pavements  discovered  among  some  of  its  ruins  are 
wonderful. 

Those  deeply-marked  alternate  boundaries  of  Moab  to 
the  south,  the  Wady  Mo  jib,  the  ancient  Arnon,  and  the 
Wady-el-Hesi  (or  el-Ahsa)  have  already  been  noted. 
South  of  the  latter  are  the  highlands  of  Edom,  and  this 
land  also  is  of  great  fertility  with  some  mineral  resources 
that  have  not  been  worked  since  the  time  of  the  Romans. 

Such  is  the  Eastern  Range  from  the  Anti-Lebanon 
to  Mount  Seir,  fruitful,  healthy  and  in  part  endowed  with 
some  hydraulic  possibilities,  but  cursed  by  insecurity. 
Along  its  eastern  skirts,  flattened  to  the  desert,  it  presents 
to  every  possible  government  of  Syria  one  of  the  heaviest 
of  problems,  which  only  the  Romans  have  been  able  to 
solve — how  to  defend  its  opulence  from  the  hungry  and 
marauding  tribes  of  Arabia.  Within  recent  years  the  Turk 
has  attempted  this  after  a  fashion  of  his  own,  playing  off 
the  Druzes  and  the  Arabs  against  each  other,  and  pushing 
out  to  the  verge  of  the  fertile  soil  colonies  of  Bulgar  and 
Circassian  Moslems  to  quarrel  with  and  cut  down  the 
desert  tribes.  This  policy  affects  only  sections  of  the  long 
frontier.1  Elsewhere  the  peasants  of  the  Eastern  Range 
snatch  a  precarious  peace  by  blackmail  to  the  Arabs.  In 

1  The  story  of  Turkish  troubles  in  Hauran  during  the  last  thirty 
years  is  one  of  melancholy  intrigue,  slaughter  and  confusion — Druze 
revolts,  serious  defeats  of  Turkish  forces,  and  then  the  achievement 
of  the  subjection  of  the  Druzes  by  dividing  them  against  each  other. 


THE  DISCREDITED  TURK 


S5 


such  conditions  long  views  and  sustained  enterprise  in 
agriculture  are  impossible. 

THE  DISCREDITED  TURK 

THAT,  then,  is  Syria,  over  which  for  four  centuries 
the  Turk  has  held  almost  unbroken  sway,  with  every 
opportunity  to  his  hand  that  a  fertile  soil  and  a  varied, 
industrious  population  can  offer  to  their  rulers.  We  see 
the  results:  the  decay  of  large  areas  of  fertility,  the  hud¬ 
dling  of  the  more  intelligent  elements  of  the  population 
upon  the  barer,  less  profitable  shelves  of  the  land,  the 
depression  and  embitterment  of  the  rest  of  the  peasantry. 

The  Turk  succeeded  to  many  difficulties,  certainly  to 
more  religious  and  racial  antagonisms  than  rankle  in  any 
other  part  of  the  world.  These  his  merely  nominal  toler¬ 
ance  has  poised  and  provoked  against  each  other  for  his 
own  ends ;  but  he  has  heaped  up  still  greater  evils  by  his 
economic  neglect  and  fiscal  oppression.  Save  for  some 
sporadic  efforts,  he  has  been  wanting  in  all  for  which  a 
government  exists — justice  and  security,  the  development 
of  the  natural  resources,  the  organisation  of  public  utilities, 
the  encouragement  of  industry  and  trade — not  to  speak  of 
education,  in  which  his  endeavours  have  been  limited  to  a 
meagre  number  of  primary  schools,  and  a  supply  of 
fanatical  instructors  in  the  Moslem  religion.  Upon  the 
social  desert,  into  which  he  has  turned  nine-tenths  of  the 
country,  the  only  oases  are  some  hospitals,  a  few  centres 
of  higher  education,  the  revival  here  and  there  of  ancient 
water-supplies,  a  couple  of  good  roads  and  a  railway  or 
two,  with  some  examples  of  scientific  and  successful  agri¬ 
culture.  But  all  these  are  due  to  other  influences  or  in¬ 
spired  by  other  faiths  than  his  own. 


86 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


The  fact  receives  emphasis  from  the  contrast  between 
the  parts  of  Syria  under  the  direct  rule  of  the  Turk  and 
the  condition  of  the  Lebanon  which,  since  1860,  has  had  a 
Christian  Governor  and  Council  beneath  a  Western  Protec¬ 
torate.  In  spite  of  enormous  natural  difficulties,  agricul¬ 
ture  and  many  industries  flourish  in  Lebanon ;  a  number  of 
excellent  roads  have  been  laid  across  its  ridges;  and  the 
population  are  as  many  as  160  to  the  square  mile,  com¬ 
pared  with  an  average  of  34.5  to  the  square  mile  through¬ 
out  the  rest  of  Syria.  The  contrast  is  decisive,  and 
Lebanon  stands  as  the  proof  of  what  all  Palestine  may 
become  when  emancipated  from  Turkish  misrule. 

The  Turk  is  an  alien  in  Syria,  with  no  native  claim  to 
the  soil,  and  few  or  no  family  ties  to  the  people.  In  Syria 
Turkish  colonies  do  not  exist;  the  men  of  that  race  are 
either  officials  or  soldiers.  In  short,  the  Turk  has  neither 
inherited  nor  earned  any  rights  to  Syria.  His  removal 
would  present  neither  social  nor  economic  difficulties. 


THE  DUTIES  OF  HIS  SUCCESSOR 

WHATEVER  government,  national  or  international, 
succeeds  him,  the  interests  that  it  must  be  right¬ 
eous,  wise  and  strong  enough  to  secure  are  clearly  the  fol¬ 
lowing:  the  protection  and  restoration  of  the  once  fertile 
but  now  wasted  areas  of  the  country  along  with  the 
development  of  other  areas  whose  hitherto  untested  possi¬ 
bilities  are  assured  by  recent  experiments  on  similarly  arid 
soils  in  other  parts  of  the  world ;  the  security  and  freedom 
of  the  native  populations;  subject  to  this,  the  claims  of 
Israel  for  a  home  in  the  land ;  and  then  the  development 
of  those  industries  for  which  so  many  of  the  people  have 
shown  a  remarkable  aptitude,  and  of  those  opportunities 


THE  RECOVERY  OE  THE  LAND  31 

for  commerce  that  arise  from  the  central  position  of  the 
country. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  religious  liberty  must  be* 
absolute,  and  that  in  such  a  land,  and  especially  at  some 
of  its  centres,  the  task  of  administering  that  liberty  will 
require  extraordinary  strength,  wisdom  and  tact.  Finally, 
very  important  in  itself,  but  subordinate  to  those  other 
things,  will  be  the  archaeological  responsibilities  of  the  new 
government :  the  conservation  of  the  countless  monuments 
which  so  rich  a  history  has  bequeathed,  and  a  methodical 
research  into  the  many  fields  of  the  Syrian  past,  both 
above  and  below  ground,  that  are  still  unexplored. 


THE  RECOVERY  OF  THE  LAND 

AS  for  the  soil  itself,  or  rather  the  various  soils,  it  may 
be  safely  said  that  under  care  they  are  capable  of  a 
pitch  of  productiveness  beyond  that  reached  even  in  the 
most  prosperous  period  of  Syrian  history.  I  leave  North¬ 
ern  Syria  at  the  summary  descriptions  given  above  and 
will  write  now  only  of  the  Lebanons  and  southward.  Let 
us  discount  for  the  moment  the  glowing  records  of  what 
Southern  Syria  has  been  to  herself  and  the  world  about 
her.  Let  us  reckon  only  her  present  aspect  and  products, 
with  due  allowance,  of  course,  for  the  effects  of  four 
centuries  of  Turkish  neglect  and  exaction,  and  the  least 
conclusion  we  can  draw  is  one  of  very  fair  promise. 

Even  Judaea,  with  its  washed-out  slopes,  shattered  ter¬ 
races  and  stony  tableland,  is  not  the  bleached  skeleton  that 
some  hurried  travellers  have  sketched  for  us.  It  is  still 
alive — gaunt,  haggard  and  with  bones  protruding,  because 
long  starved  and  maltreated — but  alive  as  even  the  most 
maltreated  land  abides  in  God’s  hands  against  better  times. 


38 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


And  Judaea  is  the  least  fertile  part  of  Palestine.  The 
acres  of  Philistia  and  Sharon,  from  which  a  scientific 
farming  has  recently  succeeded  in  drawing  two  and  even 
three  times  their  former  yield;  the  constantly  fruitful 
vales  of  Ephraim;  the  almost  unbroken  wheat-field  of 
Esdraelon ;  the  rich  plains  and  slopes  of  Galilee ;  the  lower 
terraces  of  Lebanon ;  the  vast  orchards  of  Damascus 
watered  by  the  Abana;  the  copious  harvests  of  Hauran 
and  Moab,  with  the  wealth  of  Gilead’s  cattle — though  all 
these  three  provinces  lie  exposed  to  the  Arabs ;  the  tropical 
soil  and  climate  of  the  Jordan  Valley;  with  the  olive  al¬ 
most  everywhere  and  nowhere  fatter  than  on  the  lime¬ 
stone  debris  of  Judaea  and  Galilee — these  are  the  pledges 
of  a  rich  and  a  varied  future  for  a  secure  and  emancipated 
people. 

But  in  addition  to  these  there  are  steppes  and  arid  bot¬ 
toms  in  the  land,  as  ready  to  be  transformed  by  irrigation 
or  dry-farming  as  similarly  unpromising  districts  have 
proved  in  California  and  other  western  States  of  America. 
To  the  present  writer  a  journey  into  South  California  by 
the  Mohave  desert  frequently  recalled  the  aspects  of  various 
approaches  into  Syria  through  her  encircling  and  ob¬ 
trusive  sands.  The  same  natural  difficulties,  the  same 
natural  possibilities  exist  in  the  one  region  as  in  the  other ; 
given  the  same  methods  under  the  direction  of  Western 
experience  and  it  is  not  hard  to  believe  that  the  same  or 
similar  results  would  be  obtained  in  the  East  as  in  the 
West. 

It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  possibilities  of  afforesta¬ 
tion.  Caution  is  necessary  with  the  glowing  deductions 
that  have  been  made  from  the  data  of  ancient  literature 
on  the  subject.  The  Old  Testament  word,  rendered  forest 
in  our  versions,  is  often  only  jungle  and  never  more  than 
woodland  wffien  applied  within  Palestine  proper.  The 


THE  RECOVERY  OF  THE  LAND 


39 


larger  and  more  valuable  timbers  appear  to  have  been  im¬ 
ported  from  Lebanon,  and  it  is  to  Carmel,  Lebanon  and 
Gilead  alone  that  the  sacred  writers  look  for  the  ideal  for¬ 
est — the  symbol  of  glory  and  pride.  Elsewhere  were  only 
scattered  woods,  with  sometimes  thicker  groves,  of  ever¬ 
green  oak,  terebinth,  sycomore  (only  below  1,000  feet), 
carob,  box,  pine  and  cypress;  with,  of  course,  the  heavy 
and  valuable  plantations  of  walnut  about  Damascus.  The 
afforestation  of  Syria  was  probably  never  much  more  than 
we  find  to-day,  with  perhaps  some  exceptions  such  as  the 
oak-woods  of  Sharon  that  lasted  till  the  Crusades  and  the 
huge  palm-groves  of  the  Jordan  valley  in  the  Roman 
period. 

But  all  this  is  far  from  being  the  measure  of  the 
capacity  of  Palestine  as  a  timber-bearing  country.  If 
does  not  appear  that  a  full  chance  of  proving  this  capacity 
has  ever  been  given  the  land — either  by  the  conservation 
of  its  existing  woods  or  by  planting  new  ones.  Under  the 
Turk  the  waste  has  been  reckless,  and  there  has  been  very 
little  re-planting.  On  the  other  hand,  a  few  foreign  at¬ 
tempts,  chiefly  with  pines,  have  succeeded,  and  there  is  no 
natural  obstacle  to  their  extension  over  considerable  areas 
unfit  for  other  crops.  But  it  is  beyond  Palestine  proper 
that  the  chief  hope  of  timber  must  remain.  One  of  the 
first  tasks  of  a  new  government  should  be  the  endeavour  to 
restore  the  forests  of  Lebanon  by  the  plantation  of  the 
higher  ridges.  On  the  skirts,  too,  of  that  mountain  and 
of  Hermon,  especially  about  the  sources  of  Jordan,  large 
trees  flourish,  and  the  pinewoods  south  of  Beyrout  show 
what  is  possible  there  and  on  other  sandy  stretches  of  the 
coast. 

Except  about  the  Dead  Sea  and  other  volcanic  districts, 
the  mineral  resources  of  Palestine  are  meagre,  and  even 


40 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


there  still  uncertain.1  In  the  southern  Hauran,  Gilead 
and  the  Jordan  Valiev  we  have  seen  unusual  energies  of 
water-power  waiting  to  be  applied  to  agriculture  and  the 
handicrafts. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  the  decay  of  Syria  is  largely 
due  to  a  change  of  climate,  including  a  great  diminution  of 
the  rainfall.  But  of  this  few  signs  exist  except,  at  first 
sight,  in  the  perplexing  case  of  the  Negeb.2  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  close  correspondence  between  the  relevant 
data  in  the  Bible  and  Talmud  and  the  physical  facts  of 
to-day.  That  the  change,  if  any,  has  been  so  slight  as  to 
be  negligible  is  the  opinion  of  the  great  majority  of  mod¬ 
ern  authorities,  and  the  present  writer  is  convinced  that  it 
is  the  right  opinion.  There  is  a  possible  explanation  even 
of  the  Negeb.  It  is  true  that  a  considerable  agriculture 
once  prevailed  here,  and  that  no  remains  of  aqueducts  have 
been  found  to  enable  us  to  assign  the  cause  to  irrigation 
from  the  outside.  But  the  structure  of  the  country  allows 
the  possibility  of  many  wells,  and  the  disappearance  from 
the  Negeb  of  its  ancient  prosperity  may  be  due  to  the  loss 
of  that  political  security  without  which  the  digging  of 
wells,  however  industrious,  is  but  a  vain  thing. 


THE  NATIVE  PEASANTRY  OR  EELLAHIN 

OF  the  human  factors  which  demand  the  care  of  a  just 
government  none — not  even  the  Jews — have  a 
stronger  claim  than  the  native  peasantry.  In  a  land  whose 
history  has  been  so  filled  with  invasion  and  migration, 
the  peasants  are  bound  to  be  of  diverse  stocks;  and  from 
district  to  district  they  vary  in  stature,  physiognomy,  men- 

*See  the  present  writer’s  Jerusalem,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  330  ff. 

1  See  p.  25  of  this  book. 


THE  NATIVE  PEASANTRY  OR  FELLAHIN  41 


tal  force  and  culture.  In  the  main  they  are  Semitic,  but 
have  sprung  from  three  distinct  families  of  that  race: 
the  ancient  Canaanites  who  entered  Palestine  about  2,500 
b.c.  ;  the  Arameans  who  arrived  about  the  same  time  as 
Israel — to-day  both  pure  Arameans  or  (in  Lebanon) 
Arameans  probably  crossed  by  a  Greek  strain ;  and  Arabs 
who  have  drifted  and  still  drift  in  from  the  desert,  grad¬ 
ually  passing  from  herding  to  tillage  and  from  tents  to 
stone  hovels  and  houses  in  settled  villages,  large  and 
email. 

In  parts  of  Northern  Syria  there  also  appear  some 
Israelites  of  a  long  descent  in  the  land.  In  other  parts 
an  Iranian  element  is  found.  In  Southern  Syria  the 
native  peasants  are  mostly  Moslems,  but  with  a  consider¬ 
able  number  of  Christians  and  Druzes. 

But  whatever  their  varieties  the  fellahin  have  these 
things  in  common — that  they  labour,  and  for  centuries 
have  laboured,  on  the  soil ;  that  they  are  therefore  the  basis 
of  the  people  and  the  state ;  and  that  all  through  history, 
but  most  cruelly  under  the  Turk,  their  generations  have 
borne  the  sorest  service  and  suffering.  On  them  have 
fallen  most  heavily  the  sirocco,  the  drought,  and  the  con- 
sequent  famine ;  and  it  is  their  smaller  communities  which 
have  been  most  badly  broken  by  the  plague  as  well  as  by 
the  raids  of  Arabs  from  the  desert. 

The  abandoned  villages  of  Syria  are  innumerable; 
hardly  ever  is  the  traveller  out  of  sight  of  their  ruins;  on 
the  maps  of  Palestine  no  designation  is  more  frequent  than 
“Khirbet,”  which  means  a  ruined,  forsaken  hamlet.  An¬ 
cient  or  recent,  these  fragments  of  desolation  are  the  most 
damning  witnesses  to  the  insecurity  of  the  land  under 
Oriental  rule. 

In  recent  years  the  economic  condition  of  the  Syrian 
peasant  has  steadily  declined.  Property  in  land  (which  is 


42 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


not  vmkf,  or  devoted  to  religious  purposes)  is  of  two 
kinds — muZk,  or  “owned,”  that  is  freehold,  generally  near 
to  towns  or  villages,  and  mostly  consisting  of  gardens  or 
orchards;  and  ’ amiriyeh,  “Emir’s,”  or  “State  land,”  held 
in  common  by  the  village,  and  also  called  “Undivided 
land,”  which  is  invariably  arable  and  is  annually  appor¬ 
tioned  by  lot  among  the  families  of  the  commune.1  But 
in  the  last  half-century  this  system  has  been  rudely  dis¬ 
turbed.  After  noting  the  “contrast  between  the  poverty  of 
the  fellahin  and  the  extent  and  fertility  of  the  land  owned 
by  each  village,”  Laurence  Oliphant,  who  had  long  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  observing,  traced  this  paradox  to  the  intolerable 
increase  of  the  rents  or  taxes,  aggravated  by  the  novel 
exaction  of  these  in  cash  instead  of  in  kind,  with  the  result 
that  the  peasants  are  thrown  into  the  hands  of  the  usurer, 
who  demands  from  forty  to  fifty  per  cent,  of  interest  on 
the  cash  he  advances.  Consequently  much  of  the  private 
and  communal  property  of  the  peasants  had  at  first  to  be 
mortgaged  and  then  surrendered  to  the  alien  capitalist. 
Already  in  1886,  says  Oliphant,  the  peasants  of  Esdraelon 
and  the  maritime  plain  were  “rapidly  losing  proprietorship 
in  the  soil  and  becoming  serfs.” 

It  is  true  that  the  new  proprietors  have  introduced  im¬ 
provements — better  ploughs,  hoes,  barns,  and  so  forth.  But 
the  State  has  done  nothing  for  the  land,  though  its  revenues 
have  increased.  Outside  certain  properties  of  the  Sultan, 
little  attempt  at  irrigation  has  been  made,  no  proper  roads 
have  been  laid  down.  In  1891  in  southern  Hauran  I  saw 
part  of  a  plentiful  harvest  sacrificed  for  want  of  means  of 
transport.  In  spite  of  such  conditions  some  villages  man¬ 
age  to  thrive,  and  some  farmers,  notably  Christians,  appear 
to  be  tolerably  wealthy.  It  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  these 
exceptions  have  been  rendered  possible  by  susceptibility  to 

1  For  references  see  tbe  present  writer’s  JcrusoZew,  Vol.  I.,  p.  280. 


THE  NATIVE  PEASANTRY  OR  FELLAHIN  43 


bribes  on  tbe  part  of  officials  whose  salaries  are  always  in 
arrear. 

Estimates  of  the  industry  and  ability  of  the  Syrian 
peasant  vary  very  much.  Indolence  is  often  imputed  to 
him,  and  the  charge,  even  if  it  were  generally  true,  would 
not  be  surprising  in  view  of  the  conditions  just  sketched. 
What  stimulus  of  hope  is  possible  imder  such  a  govern¬ 
ment?  But  the  charge  is  not  generally  true.  The  mass 
of  the  peasantry,  men  and  women,  have  to  work  hard,  for 
they  work  for  bare  life,  and  one  has  frequent  occasion  to 
admire  their  starved  patience  and  unblessed  industry.  Vil¬ 
lages  differ  in  character.  Some  are  notoriously  dishonest, 
malignant  to  strangers,  fanatic  against  other  faiths  than 
their  own.  Others  are  the  reverse,  peaceable,  courteous  to 
travellers,  not  self-seeking,  and  controlled  by  sheikhs, 
whom  I  have  often  found  gentlemen  and  helpful.  In 
some  communities  Christians,  Jews  and  Moslems  live  in 
amity. 

The  ignorance  of  the  fellahin  is  generally  deep,  but  that 
is  not  their  fault.  On  the  other  hand  one  discovers  a  re¬ 
markable  shrewdness  among  them,  worthy  of  far  better 
opportunities.  There  is  generally  a  healthy  discipline; 
the  good  example  of  the  elders,  whether  men  or  women, 
is  revered  and  their  counsel  obeyed.  Certain  districts  pro¬ 
duce  capable  artisans.  There  is  through  the  land  a  con¬ 
siderable  body  of  folk-song,  of  no  mean  lyric  quality. 
Drudges  as  most  of  the  fellahin  must  be  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  year,  into  what  good  spirits,  what  jest  and  song 
and  dance  they  will  burst  at  harvest  and  other  festivals ! 
Mr.  Hogarth  says:1  “There  is  no  more  enterprising,  no 
keener  intellect  in  the  Nearer  East  than  the  Syrian  of  the 
Fringe  .  .  .  the  inhabitants  of  the  Lebanon  and  the 
Syrian  littoral.”  He  ascribes  this  excellence  to  the  in- 

1  The  Nearer  Eaet,  p.  194. 


44 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


creased  quality  of  the  staples  of  life;  “where  the  ‘Arab’ 
(to  use  the  ethnic  widely)  lives  under  conditions  similar 
to  the  Greek  he  resembles  him  at  many  points,  both 
physical  and  mental.”  But  may  not  this  excellence  be 
partly  due  to  the  crossing  of  the  Semite  by  a  Greek  strain  ? 
And  in  the  Lebanon  we  cannot  forget  what  is  more  cer¬ 
tain,  the  comparative  freedom  and  security  enjoyed  by  its 
inhabitants  for  two  generations.  Their  superiority  is  the 
pledge  of  a  general  rise  in  the  moral  and  mental  level  of 
the  Syrian  peasantry  as  a  whole,  when  those  blessings 
shall  have  been  extended  to  all  the  land  by  a  strong  and  a 
just  government. 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  THE  JEWS 

THE  claim  of  the  modern  Jew  to  a  “national  home”  in 
Palestine  is  threefold: — by  right  of  the  history  of 
his  fathers,  by  right  of  his  own  devotion  to  the  ideal  of  a 
national  life,  and  by  right  of  his  recent  successful  exer¬ 
tions  on  the  soil.  To  assist  the  fulfilment  of  his  ideal  is 
only  a  part  of  what  the  civilised  world  owes  to  the  Jew, 
because  of  his  spiritual  service  to  mankind  and  because  of 
the  treatment  he  has  suffered  from  other  races  since  he 
was  driven  from  his  land.  In  the  face  of  inconceivable 
difficulties  the  Jew  (as  we  have  seen)  has  given  proof  of 
his  practical  ability  not  only  to  develop  the  resources  of 
Palestine  but  thereby  to  enable  it  to  contribute  once  more 
to  the  general  interests  of  civilisation,  as  from  its  position 
and  fertility  it  is  so  well-fitted  to  do. 

We  must  not  forget  to  do  justice  to  the  German  settlers 
at  Haifa  and  on  Sharon,  the  pioneers  of  revived  agricul¬ 
ture  in  Syria.  Laurence  Oliphant,  who  for  a  number  of 
years  was  their  neighbour,  bears  witness  to  their  honesty, 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  THE  JEWS 


45 


their  thoroughness,  and  the  influence  of  their  example  on 
the  natives.  But  according  even  to  their  friends  the  Turks, 
the  effect  of  the  work  of  the  Germans  has  been  merely 
local.  In  agricultural  results  and  in  influence  on  the 
peasantry  they  have  been  far  outdone  by  the  Jewish  colon¬ 
ists  on  the  Maritime  Plain  and  in  other  districts.1 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  during  the  last 
twenty  years  there  has  been  a  rapid  growth  of  the  idea 
of  “Palestine  for  the  Jews”  among  both  themselves  and 
other  peoples.  The  labours  of  Dr.  Herzl  and  the  influence 
of  the  Zionist  Congress  in  Basle  in  1897,  over  which  he 
presided,  gave  the  movement  its  strongest  spiritual  impetus 
from  within  Jewry.  But  both  its  hopes  and  many  of  its 
immediate  claims  have  received  an  increasing  amount  of 
recognition  from  the  Press  and  from  responsible  states¬ 
men  among  the  great  Powers.  It  is  not  a  few  years  ago 
that  Lord  Cromer  declared  that  “Zionism  is  fast  becoming 
a  practical  issue.” 

But  if  practical  before  the  war  it  has  become  immensely 
more  so  as  the  war  has  gone  on.  Since  the  Turk,  in  any 
case  an  alien  and  a  discredited  alien  has  further  shaken 
his  hold  on  Syria  by  his  alliance  with  the  enemies  of 
civilisation,  the  hopes  of  the  Jews  and  the  sympathies  of 
the  great  Powers  have  naturally  ripened.  With  the  Bel¬ 
gians,  Serbians,  Montenegrins,  Roumanians,  and  Ar¬ 
menians,  the  Jews  have  been  recognised  as  one  of  the  weak 
peoples  for  whose  national  freedom  the  Allies  are  battling. 
Their  right  to  “a  home”  in  Palestine  with  some  degree  of 
autonomy  has  been  affirmed  by  democratic  parties  in  Great 
Britain,  in  other  European  countries,  and  in  America ; 
and  has  been  acknowledged  by  more  than  one  of  the  Allied 
Governments. 

Even  in  Germany  the  strength  of  the  Jewish  claims 

1See  above,  p.  20. 


46 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


upon  Palestine  is  admitted — always,  of  course,  with  re¬ 
spect  to  Germany’s  bonds  to  her  Turkish  ally.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Roman  Catholic  organs,  the  German 
Press  has  welcomed  the  prospect  of  a  large  return  of  the 
Jews  to  the  Holy  Land  on  the  grounds  that  “Jew7s  have 
already  learned  to  support  themselves  there,”  that  their 
settlement  “would  benefit  the  native  Arabs”  (sic),  that 
“the  Turks  have  always  been  tolerant  of  Jews,”  and  that 
Jews  have  ever  been  disposed  to  he  loyal  citizens  of  the 
Turkish  Empire  and  “can  be  of  economic  advantage  to  it.” 
On  the  other  hand  in  Italy  Baron  Sonnino  has  pronounced 
that  “Palestine  must  be  freed  from  the  Turkish  yoke ;  once 
so  freed  it  would  be  neutralised  and  internationalised,  and 
declared  an  independent  State”  with  due  regard  of  course 
to  Jewish  rights. 

But  the  most  momentous  factor  in  the  Zionist  move¬ 
ment  is  Mr.  Balfour’s  declaration  on  behalf  of  the  British 
Government  that  “it  views  with  favour  the  establishment 
in  Palestine  of  a  national  home  for  the  Jewish  people  and 
will  use  its  best  endeavours  to  facilitate  the  achievement 
of  this  object,  it  being  clearly  understood  that  nothing  shall 
be  done  which  may  prejudice  the  civil  and  religious  rights 
of  non- Jewish  communities  in  Palestine  or  the  rights  and 
political  status  enjoyed  by  Jews  in  any  other  country.” 

So  far  has  the  movement  progressed.  Its  strength  is 
clear,  its  prospects  bright — especially  since  the  capture  of 
Jerusalem  by  a  British  force — and  the  devotion  to  its 
ideals  of  large  numbers  of  Jews  undoubted.  It  has  the 
sympathy  of  the  Allied  Powers  as  of  their  peoples  behind 
them,  and  even  the  Master  of  the  Turk  acknowledges  that 
a  place  must  be  found  for  the  Jews  within  the  political 
future  of  Syria.  Yet  even  so,  one  must  be  impressed 
with  the  vagueness  which  still  envelopes  the  hopes  and 
purposes  of  Zionism.  It  is  clear  that  Jews  are  ready,  and 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  THE  JEWS 


47 


must  be  allowed,  to  settle  in  Palestine,  in  very  greatly  in¬ 
creased  numbers,  for  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  (of  their 
fitness  for  which  they  have  given  solid  proof)  and  with  a 
certain  degree  of  autonomy,  free  to  express  their  “na¬ 
tional”  as  well  as  their  religious  and  economic  aspirations. 

Beyond  this  and  the  firm  conditions  happily  laid  down 
by  the  British  Government,  nothing  is  yet  definite.  How¬ 
ever  deserving  of  our  sympathy,  the  Jewish  claims  have 
not  been  so  thought  out  in  face  of  the  present  facts  of  Pal¬ 
estine  as  to  command  our  unqualified  support.  The  un¬ 
certainty  is  not  only  due  to  the  fact  that  the  war  is  un¬ 
finished  and  the  political  future  of  Syria  is  still  in  sus¬ 
pense,  nor  only  to  the  difficult  international  questions  that 
w7ill  have  to  be  settled,  if  and  when  the  Turkish  power  in 
Syria  is  abolished. 

The  vagueness  is  also  due  to  division  of  opinion  among 
the  Jews  themselves,  and  to  the  fact  that  in  enthusiasm 
for  the  undoubted  justice  of  their  aspirations  Zionists 
appear  to  ignore  or  at  best  unduly  to  depreciate  the 
economic  and  social  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  “national” 
Jewish  restoration,  and  in  particular  that  the  very  grave 
questions  of  the  area  of  the  Jewish  home  and  of  its  fron¬ 
tiers  have  not  been  as  yet  even  fully  stated,  far  less  dis¬ 
cussed  or  answered.  To  answer  these  questions  is  not 
within  the  scope  of  this  essay ;  but  in  the  interest  of  the 
education  of  the  public  it  is  necessary  to  endeavour  to 
state  them.  We  do  so  first  by  inquiring  more  exactly 
what  are  the  Jewish  aspirations,  and  then  by  observing 
how  they  are  encountered  and  affected  by  the  existing 
conditions  of  Palestine,  physical  and  social. 

A  portion  of  British  J ewry,  in  number  a  minority,  but 
of  intellectual  force  and  apparently  supported  by  a  body 
of  Jewish  opinion  in  America,  looks  for  the  establishment 
in  Palestine  of  a  community  of  Jews  which,  while  eco- 


48 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


nomically  independent,  shall  exist  mainly  for  religious  pur¬ 
poses,  “a  source  of  inspiration  to  the  whole  of  Jewry” — 
the  Jewish  communities  throughout  the  rest  of  the  world 
meantime  continuing  to  cultivate  “complete  social  and 
political  identification  with  the  nations  among  whom  they 
dwell.” 

This,  of  course,  is  far  short  of  the  “national”  ideal  of 
the  Zionists.  It  is  the  old  controversy  whether  the  test 
of  a  Jew  is  his  religion  or  his  nationality.  But  it  is 
complicated  by  the  fact  that  while  the  limitation  of  Jewish 
hopes  of  Palestine  to  a  Jewish  community  existing  there 
for  mainly  religious  purposes  is  advocated  by  the  less  rig¬ 
orous  parties  in  Judaism,  the  Zionist  demand  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Jewish  nation  in  Palestine — “for 
Judaism  is  not  only  a  creed  but  a  nationality” — is  sup¬ 
ported  by  parties  ardently  orthodox  and  many  of  them 
profoundly  spiritual. 

Nor  are  the  Zionists  themselves  of  one  mind.  There 
are  the  extremely  political  Zionists,  who  demand  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  an  autonomous  Jewish  state  under  international 
guarantees,  and  offer  Belgium  as  an  example  of  what  they 
mean.  But  moderate,  or,  as  they  call  themselves,  “prac¬ 
tical,”  Zionists,  realising  that  the  Jews  now  are,  and  for 
some  time  must  still  be,  a  minority  in  Palestine,  and  “pre¬ 
ferring  the  line  of  safe  and  sure  development,”  disclaim 
the  idea  of  an  independent  Jewish  state,  and  plead  only 
for  the  restoration  of  their  people  as  a  nationality. 

As  one  has  said  of  the  Zionist  Congress:  “It  was  not 
to  establish  a  Jewish  State  to-day  or  to-morrow  that  we 
went  to  Basle,  but  to  proclaim  aloud  to  the  whole  world : 
‘The  Jewish  people  still  lives  and  wants  to  live/  ”  But 
this  restoration  to  Palestine,  which  “practical”  Zionists 
demand,  is  not  the  restoration  of  a  vast  number  of  indi¬ 
vidual  Jews  as  free  citizens  of  whatever  state  may  be 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  THE  JEWS 


49 


established  there,  nor  merely  the  extension  of  the  present 
system  of  Jewish  colonies  owning  scattered  districts  with 
freedom  to  manage  their  own  business  and  local  affairs. 
It  is  the  establishment  of  the  Jews  as  a  nation ,  “under 
Jewish  law,  in  possession  of  the  whole  of  the  Jewish  land,” 
and  using,  of  course,  the  Hebrew  language.  Their  own 
words  are  “a  Jewish  Palestine,”  “the  establishment  of  a 
Jewish  national  home”  (which  appears  also  in  Mr.  Bal¬ 
four's  declaration),  “a  home  for  Judaism,  for  Jewish  civ¬ 
ilisation  as  well  for  some  millions  of  Jews,  in  the  ancient 
land  of  Israel.”  Or  again,  “We  want  Palestine,  the  whole 
country,  to  be  the  home  of  the  Jews,  and  we  want  to  live 
under  our  own  laws,  not  indeed  with  the  outward  shell 
of  a  State,  but  with  the  inner  kernel  of  free  and  independ¬ 
ent  institutions.” 

It  would  not  be  at  all  fair  to  interpret  this  desire  as  one 
for  all  the  blessings,  without  any  of  the  heaviest  respon¬ 
sibilities,  of  nationality.  The  desire  is  most  natural — 
perhaps  the  only  one  possible — to  a  people  who,  while 
heroically  preserving  their  national  spirit  through  eighteen 
centuries  of  dispersion  and  many  persecutions,  are  with¬ 
out  the  experience  or  the  means  required  for  government 
and  its  international  duties.  Towards  the  fulfilment  of  a 
national  restoration  Zionists  reckon,  not  without  reason,  on 
the  migration  of  millions  of  Jews  to  Palestine.  However 
Jewry  may  be  divided  in  opinion  as  to  the  shape  which 
that  restoration  should  take,  there  is  little  doubt  that,  given 
freedom  to  return  and  possess  land  under  their  own  laws, 
Jews  would  resort  to  Palestine  in  sufficient  numbers  to 
form  a  nation.  Moreover,  there  is  room  for  them  in  the 
country;  from  what  we  have  seen  its  capacity  to  support 
them  is  not  to  be  denied,  nor,  as  their  colonies  have  shown, 
can  we  doubt  their  ability  to  develop  this. 

It  is  also  natural  that  at  this  staae  of  the  war  Jewish 


50 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


opinions  should  not  be  agreed  as  to  what  is  to  be  the 
supreme  power  in  Palestine.  Some  Zionists,  perhaps  the 
wisest,  refrain  from  making  any  proposals.  Others  con¬ 
ceive  of  a  wide  but  undefined  international  suzerainty, 
others  of  a  protectorate  by  a  single  great  Power,  or  of  a 
condominium •  by  two  or  three;  while  some  non- Jewish 
writers  suggest  that  this  should  be  assumed  by  France, 
Italy  and  Britain. 

But  many  Jews  deprecate  the  idea  of  a  condominium, 
the  risks  and  failures  of  which  have  been  experienced  else¬ 
where,  and  claim  that  the  protectorate  must  be  single. 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  have  each  been 
named  as  ' the  Power  most  desirable  in  the  circumstances, 
British  Jews  and  in  particular  the  British  Palestine 
Society  strongly  pleading  for  the  former.  Their  phrase 
is  aa  free  nationality  within  the  British  Empire’7;  their 
reasons,  that  free  nationalities,  prosperous  and  contented, 
already  exist  within  that  Empire — the  Jewish  would  only 
be  one  more.  ^ 

To  complete  this  account  of  Jewish  opinion  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  add  that  some  Zionists  also  appeal  to  British  in¬ 
terests.  They  seek  to  show  that  the  Judaean  plateau  is 
“the  needed  bulwark  of  the  Suez  Canal,”  “the  outer  bas¬ 
tion  of  Egypt,”  and  that  “the  natural  buffer-state  to  Egypt 
is  Palestine.” 

Such  are  the  aspirations  of  the  Zionists  and  the  plans 
of  some  of  them.  How  do  they  bear  upon  the  existing 
facts  of  the  situation  ? 


RELIGIOUS  QUESTIONS 


51 


RELIGIOUS  QUESTIONS 

WE  may  take  first  the  religious  facts,  though,  except 
in  one  respect,  that  of  the  holy  places,  the  religious 
facts  are  not  the  most  difficult  or  acute.  Were  Jewish 
influence,  social  and  political,  to  become  predominant  in 
Palestine — if  only  through  sheer  force  of  numbers — I  do 
not  think  it  would  prove  intolerant  to  other  creeds.  Deli¬ 
cate  and  even  dangerous  as  the  relations  of  religions  have 
always  been  in  Syria,  and  fanatic  against  other  faiths  a3 
fractions  of  the  Jewish  population  might  prove  to  be,  the 
general  spirit  of  the  modern  race  is  tolerant,  and  with 
international  guarantees  for  religious  liberty,  can  be 
trusted  to  subdue  the  passion  or  arrogance  of  groups  of 
its  own  people. 

The  particular  question  of  the  sacred  places  is  more 
dangerous;  it  will  always  be  difficult  whatever  race  or 
faith  may  prevail  in  the  land.1  How  would  Jewish  in¬ 
fluence  treat  it  ?  I  have  seen  general  promises  by  Zionists 
on  the  subject.  But  it  is  when  one  comes  to  details  that 
the  danger  first  rises.  You  may  make  Jerusalem  an  in¬ 
ternational,  a  free  or  neutral,  city,  with  rights  equal  to 
Christians,  Jews  and  Moslems.  But  how  does  the  Jew 
propose  to  decide  between  himself  and  the  Moslem  the 
question  of  the  possession  or  of  the  use  of  the  sacred 
Rock  beneath  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  or  of  the  Mosque  at 
Hebron  ? 


‘See  above,  p.  5. 


62 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


ECONOMIC  QUESTIONS 

THERE  are  other  and  even  more  serious  difficulties 
connected  with  the  restoration  of  the  Jews  to  Pales¬ 
tine  which  must  he  faced  before  the  political  future  of 
that  country  and  of  those  who  have  claims  upon  it  is 
determined.  There  is  the  case  of  the  native  fellahin. 
We  have  seen  what  their  stake  in  the  land  is,  what  rights 
in  the  soil  they  have  earned,  what  claims  their  centuries 
of  service  and  suffering  give  them  upon  the  sympathies 
of  the  free  democracies  by  whom  their  fate  will  have  to 
be  decided.1 

With  regard  to  these  claims,  it  is  not  enough  to  say, 
as  some  Zionists  have  done,  that  there  is  room  in  the  land 
both  for  the  “ Arabs”  (as  Zionists  erroneously  call  them) 
and  for  the  Jews.  When  Jewish  writers  claim  “the 
whole  country  for  the  Jews/’  when  they  write  of  “the 
re-settlement  and  rebirth  of  Palestine’7  as  “the  national 
centre”  of  “the  Jewish  nation,”  have  they  realised  the 
economic  and  social  disturbances  which  the  execution  of 
this  claim  would  involve  ?  Jt  is  useless  to  compare  the 
claims  of  the  Jews  on  Palestine  with  the  rights  of  the 
Belgians  to  Belgium.  When  the  Belgians  are  restored  to 
their  land  it  will  not  be  at  the  risks  of  a  native  peasantry 
different  from  themselves,  who  have  owned  and  lived  by 
its  soil  for  centuries.  How  do  Zionists  propose  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  legal  rights  and  secure  the  social  health  of  the 
fellahin ,  or  to  prevent  the  continuation  of  that  process  of 
buying  and  crushing  them  out  of  their  communal  property, 
by  which  so  many  have  already  been  reduced  to  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  serfs  ?  It  is  no  duty  of  the  present  writer  to  an¬ 
swer  these  questions;  but  while  Jewish  hopes  are  high  and 

*See  above,  p.  40  ff. 


THE  LIMITS  OF  THE  JEWISH  AREA  53 


legitimately  high,  it  is  right  to  point  out  what  difficulties 
lie  in  the  way  of  their  equitable  fulfilment,  and  what 
very  serious  economic  details  have  still  to  be  thought 
out. 

In  illustration,  an  experience  may  be  quoted.  On 
visiting  a  recently  established  Jewish  colony  in  the 
north-east  of  the  land,  round  which  a  high  wall  had 
been  built  by  the  munificent  patron,  I  found  the  colo¬ 
nists  sitting  in  its  shade  gambling  away  the  morning, 
while  groups  of  fellahin  at  a  poor  wage  did  the  cultiva¬ 
tion  for  them.  I  said  that  this  was  surely  not  the  inten¬ 
tion  of  their  patron  in  helping  them  to  settle  on  land  of 
their  own.  A  Jew  replied  to  me  in  German:  “Is  it 
not  written :  The  sons  of  the  alien  shall  he  your  plowmen 
and  vinedressers V’ 

I  know  that  such  delinquencies  have  become  the  ex¬ 
ceptions  in  the  Jewish  colonisation  of  Palestine,  but  they 
are  symptomatic  of  dangers  which  will  have  to  be  guarded 
against.  When  we  hear  that  Jews  desire  to  live  under 
their  own  laws  in  Palestine,  and  rightly  sympathise  with 
that  desire,  we  must  at  the  same  time  take  sureties  that 
these  laws  shall  not  include  those  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  might  encourage  baser  Jews  to  the  “sweating”  of 
the  natives  as  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water. 

THE  LIMITS  OF  THE  JEWISH  AREA 

AGAIN  there  is  the  question  of  the  limits  of  the  Jew¬ 
ish  area  with  all  the  difficulties  it  raises,  both  ethnic 
and  strategic.  Zionists  claim  for  the  Jews  “the  whole 
country”  of  Palestine;  and  one  writer  adds:  “there  must 
be  no  partition  of  Palestine;  the  Jew  in  Galilee  must 
not  be  cut  off  by  an  international  frontier  from  the  Jew 
in  Jerusalem.”  But  what  is  Palestine ?  Save  under  the 


54 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


Romans,  the  name  has  never  had  exact  borders;  to-day  it 
is  perhaps  more  vaguely  applied  than  at  any  other  time. 

Which  of  the  possible  lines  of  division  we  have  seen 
round  and  across  Syria  are  to  be  the  frontiers  of  the 
new  Syria,  when  the  Turk  is  forced  to  relinguish  the 
land  and  some  other  Power  or  Powers  assume  authority  ? 
And  when  these  frontiers  have  been  settled,  on  ethnic  and 
military  considerations,  how  much  of  what  they  embrace 
is  to  belong  to  the  Jewish  people  as  a  nationality,  and  to 
be  administered  under  Jewish  law? 

Some  regions  may  at  once  be  ruled  out  of  the  Jewish 
sphere;  others  are  doubtful;  others  we  cannot  exclude. 
There  is  Middle  Syria  between  two  definite  borders,  the 
Nahr  el-Kebir  on  the  north  and  the  Nahr  el-Kasimiveh, 
and  containing  the  Lebanon.  What  rights,  historical  or 
moral,  have  the  Jews  to  this?  For  at  least  fifteen  cen¬ 
turies  Lebanon  has  been  Christian  territory,  and  as  we 
have  seen  has  enjoyed  since  1860  a  separate  constitu¬ 
tion  with  a  Christian  governor  under  the  protection  of 
the  Powers  of  Europe.  The  population  is  about  400,000, 
of  whom  320,000  are  Christians,  50,000  Druzes  and  the 
rest  Moslems,  with  practically  no  Jews.  There  is  Beyrout 
with  a  population  of  over  100,000,  of  whom  two-thirds 
are  Christian  and  the  rest  Moslem.  There  is  also  the 
Phoenician  coast  south  of  the  Kasimiyeh  without  a  single 
memory  of  Jewish  occupation  or  of  the  influence  of  Jew¬ 
ish  culture.  There  is  Eastern  Palestine  separated  from 
Galilee  and  Judsea  by  the 
Dead  Sea.  What  is  the  evidence  of  history  as  to  Jewish 
rights  over  these  eastern  provinces? 

Except  when  Herod  had  the  legions  of  Rome  behind 
him  the  Jewish  nation  failed  to  exercise  authority  or 
keep  order  in  Hauran  in  parts  of  Gilead  and  in  Moab. 
Their  conquests  were  temporary,  their  settlements  incon- 


deep  trench  of  the  Jordan  and 


THE  LIMITS  OF  THE  JEWISH  AREA  55 


stant.  The  civilisation  of  those  provinces  was  never  Jew¬ 
ish  but  Greek,  Roman  or  Byzantine;  and  the  last  was 
long  ensured  by  tribes  of  Christian  Arabs — wardens  of 
the  marches — who  themselves  developed  an  impressive  cul¬ 
ture  and  have  left,  standing  to  this  day  on  the  desert- 
margins,  monuments  of  their  ability  and  character.  These 
Arab  Christians  have  not  died  out ;  scattered  communities 
of  them  still  endure  east  of  the  Jordan,  as  far  south  as 
Kerak,  at  other  points  in  Moab  and  Gilead,  and  even  in 
Hauran  and  on  the  Druze-Mountain.  Again,  there  is  the 
Negeb,  where  the  only  remains  of  settled  life  are  By¬ 
zantine.  There  is  Philistia,  only  occasionally  in  Jewish 
hands. 

There  is  Damascus  itself,  the  largest  city  and  the 
real  metropolis  of  Syria,  in  which  the  Jew  never  had 
rights  except  the  right  to  trade;  and  the  moral  claims 
to  predominance  are  shared  by  the  Christian  and  the 
Moslem.1 

Judaea,  Samaria  and  Galilee  are  left.  Is  the  whole 
of  each  of  these  to  be  the  area  of  the  Jewish  “national 
home”  ?  The  religious  history  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
devotion  to  her  of  so  many  living  faiths  point  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  city  and  its  territory  should  be  abso¬ 
lutely  neutral  under  international  guarantees.  But  if 
the  rest  of  Western  Palestine  be  given  back  to  the  Jewish 
people  as  a  people,  what  of  the  Christian  communities 
within  it,  especially  in  Bethlehem  and  its  neighbourhood 
— where  they  have  given  as  good  proof  as  many  Jewish 
colonists  of  their  powyer  to  farm  the  soil — and  in  Nazareth 
and  its  neighbourhood,  also  at  other  points.  Napoleon 
when  he  camped  on  Esdraelon  was  impressed  by  the  num¬ 
bers  of  Christians  from  Galilee  who  came  to  do  him 
homage;  since  then  they  have  not  diminished. 

*See  above,  p.  30. 


56 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


Thus  the  claims  of  the  Zionists,  strong  though  they 
be,  raise  larger  and  more  detailed  questions  than  their 
copious  literature  has  discussed  or  even  stated.  The 
Zionist  rightly  appeals  to  history;  but  his  appeal  must 
be  decided  on  wider  and  more  complicated  considera¬ 
tions  than  he  advances — not  only  the  Jewish  associations 
and  achievements  in  Palestine,  but  Jewish  limitations 
and  failures  as  well,  along  with  the  rights  that  other  races 
and  faiths  have  undoubtedly  earned  in  that  doubly  and 
trebly  sacred  land. 

It  is  not  true  that  “Palestine  is  the  national  home  of 
the  Jewish  people  and  of  no  other  people.”  It  is  not 
correct  to  call  its  non- Jewish  inhabitants  “Arabs,”  or  to 
say  that  “they  have  left  no  image  of  their  spirit  and 
made  no  history — except  in  the  great  Mosque.”  We 
may  rule  out  the  Franks,  their  brief  discipline  of  Syria 
and  the  many  monuments  of  this  that  remain.  But  what 
of  the  native  Christians,  Syrian  and  Greek  ?  They  doubt¬ 
less  claim  that  their  faith  is  the  moral  heir  of  all  that  wa3 
best  in  ancient  Judaism. 

If  agreement  on  that  question  is  impossible,  there  re¬ 
mains  the  other,  which  we  cannot  evade,  of  the  fact  of 
the  living  Christian  communities.  Have  they  not  been  as 
long  in  possession  of  their  portions  of  the  land  as  ever 
the  Jews  were?  Is  not  Palestine  the  birthplace  of  their 
faith  also  and  its  fields  as  sacred  to  Christians  as  to  Jews  ? 
Has  Christianity  “made  no  history”  and  “left  no  image 
of  its  spirit”  on  the  Holy  Land? 

These  are  legitimate  questions  stirred  by  the  claims 
of  Zionism,  but  the  Zionists  have  not  yet  fully  faced  them. 
In  short,  the  Jewish  question  in  the  Holy  Land  cannot  be 
decided  by  itself,  nor  merely  upon  general  assurances 
that  “the  rights  of  other  creeds  and  races  will  be  re¬ 
spected”  under  Jewish  dominance.  Obviously  a  very  great 


i 


THE  FRONTIERS  OF  NEW  SYRIA 


57 


deal  of  difficult,  detail  has  still  to  be  thought  out  by  the 
Powers  of  Europe — and  the  democracies  of  Europe  edu¬ 
cated  in  the  thinking  thereof — before  the  future  of  Syria 
can  be  settled  on  lines  of  justice  and  security  for  all  na¬ 
tions  and  creeds  alike. 


THE  FRONTIERS  OF  NEW  SYRIA 

A  MERE  allusion  has  been  made  to  the  wider  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  frontiers  of  the  New  Syria  as  a  whole. 
At  this  stage  it  is  premature  to  attempt  a  full  answer  to 
the  question.  But  our  survey  of  the  land  has  made  some 
outlines  more  or  less  clear. 

The  southern  border  of  Syria,  from  time  immemorial, 
has  been  a  line  drawn  from  el-Arish  on  the  coast  to  the 
head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akaba — all  the  desert  beyond  has 
been  regarded  as  belonging  to  Egypt.  Under  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  warfare,  and  indeed  down 
to  the  time  of  Napoleon,  this  desert  was  considered  as 
strong  a  barrier  and  bulwark  as  is  possible  between  two 
States.  In  Napoleon’s  own  words:  aDe  tous  les  obstacles 
qui  peuvent  couvrir  les  frontieres  des  empires  un  desert 
pareil  a  celui-ci  est  incontestablement  le  plus  grand  .  .  . 
car,  si  on  a  tant  de  difficulte  a  transporter  les  vivres 
d’une  armee  que  rarement  on  v  reussit  completement, 
cette  difficulte  devient  vingt  fois  plus  grande,  quand  il 
faut  trainer  avec  soi  l’eau,  les  fourrages  et  le  bois,  trois 
choses  d’un  grand  poids,  tres  difficiles  a  transporter  et 
qu’ordinairement  les  armees  trouvent  sur  les  lieux.” 

Modern  means  of  transport  have  indeed  rendered  the 
Syro-Egyptian  desert  somewhat  less  formidable ;  yet 
even  so  we  may  doubt  the  Zionists’  contention  (by  which 
they  appeal  to  British  interests)  that  Egypt  and  the  Suez 


58 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY  LAND 


Canal  require  “a  buffer  state”  in  Palestine,  and  more 
particularly  on  the  Judaean  plateau.  And,  besides,  if  this 
State  is  created,  where  is  its  own  northern  frontier  to 
run  ?  Hardly  over  Esdraelon,  for  that,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  neither  a  political  nor  a  strategic  border.1  If  the  next 
natural  line  were  chosen,  the  Nahr-el-Kasimiyeh,2  then 
“the  buffer  State”  would  itself  require  a  buffer,  for  it3 
northern  frontier  would  run  defenceless  against  the  foot 
of  a  great  mountain-wall.  But  in  any  case  the  argument 
for  a  Judasan  buffer  to  Egypt  is  not  conclusive.  A  friendly 
State  in  southern  Syria  would  indeed  be  a  support,  but  not 
an  indispensable  support,  to  the  security  of  the  Canal  or 
of  Egypt 

If  Lebanon,  or  the  Lebanons,  be  created  a  Christian 
province  wThich  they  essentially  are,  and  already  in  1860 
were  recognised  to  be  by  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  the 
natural  boundaries  would  be  those  which  have  frequently 
formed  political  frontiers — the  Nahr-el-Kebir  to  the  north 
and  the  Nahr-el-Kasimiyeh  on  the  south;  and  Beyrout 
would  have  to  be  brought  in.  But  how  is  Damascus  to 
be  related  to  such  a  province?  Bound  to  the  Lebanons 
by  many  ties  of  neighbourhood  and  trade,  as  well  as  by 
the  blood  of  a  large  part  of  its  population,  Damascus  car¬ 
ries  far  wider  responsibilities  than  these  both  to  the  rest 
of  Syria  and  to  Arabia,  and  therefore  in  any  reconstruc¬ 
tion  of  the  nearer  East  stands  a  problem  by  itself. 

North  of  the  Lebanons  the  possible  frontiers  are  two  3 
— first  the  westward  bend  of  the  Orontes  to  the  sea,  and 
then  the  Taurus  itself.  But  the  questions  they  raise, 
with  the  kindred  question  of  Aleppo,  depend  for  their 
answers  on  the  settlement  of  the  political  future  of  Meso- 

1  See  above,  p.  13. 

sSee  above,  p.  13. 

3  See  above,  pp.  13,  21. 


THE  FRONTIERS  OF  NEW  SYRIA  59 

potamia — a  subject  beyond  the  scope  of  our  present  in¬ 
quiry. 

Finally,  there  is  the  Eastern  frontier.  This  can  hard¬ 
ly  be  the  Jordan-Orontes  Valley.  It  is  impossible  to 
conceive  of  the  provinces  over  Jordan  and  the  Orontes 
as  excluded  from  the  New  Syria.  But  if  they  are  in¬ 
cluded  her  government  must  be  of  a  power  sufficient  to 
render  their  open  borders  on  the  desert  secure  against 
tribes  of  whom  there  can  be  no  hope  for  some  time  that 
they  will  respect  civilisation’s  ideals  of  disarmament. 
Even  if  a  stable  government  be  founded  in  the  Hejaz,  it 
cannot  be  relied  on  as  able  to  control  the  warrior  hordes 
of  Northern  Arabia.  The  tribes  which  rove  between 
Palestine  and  the  Euphrates  reckon  their  fighting-men 
by  many  scores  of  thousands;  a  very  large  number  of 
whom  are  armed  with  Martini-Henry  and  other  modern 
rifles. 

For  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  Syria  a  strong  Eastern 
frontier  down  the  desert  is  essential.  And  is  Edom  to 
come  within  this  frontier  or  to  be  left  to  the  Arab,  when 
the  Turk  is  removed  ?  The  last  European  government 
which  held  Western  Palestine,  that  of  the  Crusaders, 
found  it  necessary  to  build  fortresses  in  the  Edomite  high¬ 
lands  and  to  push  its  arms  by  that  direction  as  far  as  the 
Gulf  of  Akaba — as  the  Romans  did  before  it. 

All  this  is  enough  to  make  clear  that  the  Power  or 
Powers  to  whom  the  political  future  of  Syria  falls  will 
have  problems  before  them  far  more  serious  than  any 
that  Britain  has  had  to  solve  in  Egypt,  and  quite  as 
heavy  as  those  which  gather  along  the  northern  and  north¬ 
western  frontiers  of  the  Indian  Empire. 


60 


SYRIA  AND  THE  HOLY"  LAND 


EPILOGUE 

AS  I  write  these  last  paragraphs  the  news  comes  in 
of  the  liberation  of  J erusalem  from  the  Turk  on  the 
9th  December  by  a  British  force,  including  troops  from 
all  the  British  Dominions  over  the  seas  and  Indian  Mos¬ 
lems,  as  well  as  French  and  Italian  detachments.  It  was, 
besides,  the  very  day  on  which  Jews  celebrate  the  anni¬ 
versary  of  her  deliverance  by  Judas  Maccabeus. 

In  his  solemn  entry  to  the  Holy  City  the  British  Gen¬ 
eral  was  accompanied  by  the  attaches  of  France,  Italy,  and 
the  United  States  of  America.  Guardians  were  appointed 
for  all  the  Christian  sanctuaries.  The  Indian  Moslems 
were  put  in  charge  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  and  the 
hereditary  Moslem  custodians  of  the  gates  of  the.  Holy 
Sepulchre  were  requested  to  continue  their  accustomed 
duties  in  remembrance  of  the  magnanimous  act  of  the 
Khalif  Omar  who  protected  that  Church. 

May  this  wonderful  beginning — even  if  it  is  not  fol¬ 
lowed  by  the  harmless  conquest  of  the  rest  of  the  Holy 
Land — be  the  earnest  of  the  creation,  for  the  first  time 
on  earth,  of  a  government  devoted  wholly  to  Peace,  with 
no  temptation  to  war  in  itself  and  no  provocation  to 
other  States,  because  founded  by  the  agreement  and  sol¬ 
emn  guarantees  of  all  peoples  to  whom  the  land  is  dear 
and  holy.  What  fitter  soil  could  be  dedicated  to  this 
ideal,  which  we  pray  to  be  gradually  fulfilled  all  the  world 
over,  than  that  on  which  the  coming  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace  was  predicted,  on  which  He  was  born  and  suffered 
and  died,  that  He  might  draw  all  men  to  Himself  and  to 
one  another ! 

In  these  pages  we  have  been  engaged  with  the  merely 
material  foundations,  resources,  and  securities  of  the  New 


EPILOGUE 


61 


Syria.  Wide  and  rich  as  they  are,  pregnant  with  the 
fullest  promise  to  the  land  and  its  various  peoples,  they 
cannot  avail  without  the  devotion  of  these  peoples,  and 
of  the  Western  Governments  and  democracies  which  sup¬ 
port  them,  to  those  principles  and  ideals  of  which  the 
land’s  sons  have  been  the  prophets  to  mankind.  In  the 
words  of  one  of  them — until  the  Spirit  he  poured  from 
on  high  and  the  wilderness  become  a  fruitful  field ,  and  the 
work  of  righteousness  he  peace  and  the  effect  of  righteous¬ 
ness  quietness  and  confidence  for  ever ;  and  My  people  shall 
abide  in  a  peaceable  habitation  and  in  sure  dwellings  and 
in  quiet  resting  places.  Then  shall  it  be  confidently  said, 
Arise,  shine,  for  thy  light  is  come  and  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  is  risen  upon  thee! 


Daraya.\ 


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